Source: allAfrica
Tourism Deputy Minister Tokozile Xasa says women in leadership should continuously and actively agitate for the upliftment of women.
"We need the buy-in and collaborate across the broad spectrum of society as we are collectively responsible for advancing the South African economy," she said.
Speaking at the Women of Value South Africa (WOVSA) Indaba held in Johannesburg on Tuesday, Deputy Minister Xasa said despite women making up nearly 70% of the workforce in the tourism and hospitality sector, there is still a marked under-representation of women in senior positions within the industry.
WOVSA is a non-profit organisation formed in 2011. The organisation's mission is to impact on the lives of women and youth to be part of the mainstream socio and economic development in SA.
"Women hold less than 40% of all managerial positions and 5 to 8% of board positions.
"A study conducted by the National Department of Tourism in 2011 to assess the state of transformation found that the vast majority of enterprises (up to 90%) have no black female shareholding," the Deputy Minister said.
According to the South African United Nations representative, women in South Africa contribute about 30% to the Gross Domestic Product and this makes the economic empowerment of women a non-negotiable priority.
Deputy Minister Xasa said the establishment of the Women in Tourism (WiT) forum is aimed at addressing the economic inequalities and challenges faced by women within the sector.
Touching on the National Development Plan (NDP), the Deputy Minister said government adopted the NDP as a blueprint for mapping out a long term vision for the country.
"Its core priorities are to reduce poverty, unemployment and inequality. The NDP is everybody's business and we would like it to be embraced as such.
"We want people to be part of it and be excited about it because South Africa is everybody's business," she said.
The role of WOVSA is to mobilise, advocate, lobby, facilitate, monitor and evaluate as well as do research and develop programmes that respond to the mission of the organisation.
WOVSA partners with government, the private sector and other social partners in programmes that impact lives of women and youth in a sustainable manner.