Laying the bricks for women empowerment

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Held in Gauteng, the session sought to address issues that relate to the advancement of equal opportunities for women in the built industry. It was a platform to continue the debate on the socio-economic transformation of the industry.

The roundtable was held following the launch of the NHBRC’s Transformation Charter, which was developed to empower designated groups (i.e. women, youth, military veterans and people with disabilities) through procurement, training and development, as well as employment opportunities.

Women Empowerment Programme

More than 300 women have gone through the NHBRC’s flagship programme – Women Empowerment Programme, which was developed in conjunction with the Gordon Institute of Business Studies (GIBS), with the aim of developing leadership potential and boosting the business skills of women.

This was further boosted by an investment of more than R30m in training and skills development programmes in the 2017/18 financial year.

NHBRC acting chairperson Julieka Bayat said while great strides have been made to bridge the inequality gap, a lot more still needs to be done in order to realise real tangible benefits on the ground and the NHBRC needs partners from the industry to accelerate this.

“Through this event, we hope to broaden the scope by creating more opportunities for the sector. We would also like to encourage and challenge our sister human settlement entities and the private sector to come on board with us in order to drive this, as we contribute towards radical economic transformation,” said Bayat.

Radical economic transformation agenda

In keeping with the radical economic transformation agenda, the NHBRC set a target of 51% of procurement spend to be directed towards Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) companies.

This target has been overachieved, as more than 60% of the NHBRC’s procurement came from BBBEE companies in the 2017/18 financial year. The NHBRC committed itself to ensure that it excels in transforming procurement to the benefit of black business.

The NHBRC is an agency of the Department of Human Settlements, which is responsible for the protection of housing consumers and to regulate the home building industry.