THE BLACK Management Forum (BMF) is heading to its annual policy conference scheduled for November 10, 2023. The theme and goal for this conference is to have conversations that will craft the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) blueprint for the next 30 years of our democracy.

The BMF intends to own and drive this conversation as the midwives of the BEE concept. What we all agree on by now as a country is that the current BEE model has taken us as far as it could. We now need new answers to our old question of how may we end poverty in our lifetime and bring more people to meaningfully participate in the economy.

We need to think about new ways of achieving this goal sustainably. The BMF has historically placed more emphasis on race as a driver for inclusive economic growth.

The belief that bringing in the majority of the population, which is black people into the mainstream of the economy will drive the desired transformation in the country.

The census 2022 tells us that this belief was not misplaced, as the population continues to grow, up from 51.8 million in 2011 to 62 million in 2022. This population growth favours black people as they are the race group that grew the most from 79.2% in 2011 to 81.4% in 2022, and Indian population that grew from 2.5% in 2011 to 2.7% in 2022.

Thus, sharply focusing on the black majority as a strategy to drive equity, inclusion and economic growth has not been misplaced. However, the census 2022 also shows that Women make up 51.5% of the population compared to 48.5% men.

The census indicates that the basics have been largely provided by the South African government in the past 28 years. Basic services such as housing, water and electricity and access to education.

The quality of these services, especially education as an enabler for economic growth is another question, however, access seems to be improving.

The census also reveals that 42% of households are headed by women, up from 30% in 1995. This indicates that Socially South Africa has been gradually changing in terms of gender roles expectations and realities with women taking over the leadership role of the home. Socially, South Africa prescribes to patriarchal beliefs that the man is the head of the household and economic provider for the family.

Yet reality indicates that these beliefs may not be in alignment with what society has become. In 2023, women are most likely to be the economic providers for many South African households. These changes create mental conflict and have huge implications for the transformation agenda because they call for a change of mindset for all players, especially policy makers as we think about the next level BEE model.

The transformation agenda has always competed with social attitudes, norms and stereotypes. For instance, black business has often been unfairly associated with shoddy work and poor client service delivery, thereby making empowerment efforts to not be fully supported on the ground, despite the good policies intended for empowerment.

Similarly, women empowerment efforts have not been as impactful as intended to be because of these social attitudes, norms and stereotypes. Studies have shown that women tactically exclude themselves from taking up senior roles at the workplace to focus on family responsibilities, to avoid the scrutiny associated with being a woman leader in a men’s world or to avoid earning more than their husbands, thereby destabilising the family power dynamic.

The pressure to keep a social order that may no longer be practical has implications on both the individual’s mental health and societal balance. It is therefore, important to promote the psychological empowerment of both women and men to be in a position to cope with the changing societal realities.

Specifically for women to realise their unique position in society right now and their abilities to manage and influence different outcomes for their communities and society at large.

These are not easy subjects to fully grasp, especially in how their intersectionality affects the good policy intentions we all want to realise. As a result of their complexity, the BMF will dedicate time at the policy conference to deliberate on how the woman agenda ought to be firmly integrated into the next level BEE or the BEE 2.0 that we envision.

This is important, because a transformation model that treats women as an afterthought is guaranteed failure and failure to transform not only the economic conditions of the country but the societal beliefs that keep the status quo the same will be a tragedy that we all cannot afford.

Join us at the policy conference. Let’s think about these matters together.

Dr Sibongile Vilakazi is the president of the Black Management Forum.

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