Minister in the Presidency responsible for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, Sindisiwe Chikunga, has raised concern over the persistent gendered socio-economic gap, which remains both “untenable and unsustainable.”

Speaking at the opening of the Global Conference on Financial Inclusion and Women Empowerment, currently underway at Sun City Resort, North West Province, Chikunga emphasised that despite decades of advocacy, women and girls across the globe continue to bear the brunt of poverty and exclusion.

Held from 6 - 9 May 2025, the conference brings together the 2nd Empowerment of Women Working Group (EWWG) and the Financial Inclusion Conference under the umbrella of South Africa’s G20 Presidency.

The event, hosted by the Department of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities (DWYPD), aims to influence future G20 policy through the introduction of a Guidelines Framework for Mainstreaming Women’s Priorities, ensuring women’s financial empowerment remains central to global institutional and economic reforms.

In her opening address, Chikunga said poverty continues to rob women and girls of essential services, including healthcare and education, and their exclusion from socio-economic opportunities throughout their lives.

“As a result, women continue to be underrepresented in economic decision-making positions. They have limited access to credit and capital, face discrimination in employment, earn less, shoulder disproportionate unpaid care responsibilities, and lag behind in digital financial access.

“Even in areas where women's labour force participation has peaked, their work often takes the form of self-employment in the informal sector with no security and limited opportunities for growth. Here on the continent, parts of the Global South and beyond, the majority of women are either unemployed, under employed, or mostly vulnerably employed,” Chikunga said.

The Minister also noted that women who pursue entrepreneurship are often reduced to the informal sector, with limited access to capital and other formal financial services.

“They are hindered by the lack of essential skills to effectively manage and sustain businesses, and take advantage of available financial services, products, and other existing business opportunities. Only a handful of financial institutions understand the unique needs of women enough to provide them with relevant products and services that adequately respond to these needs,” she said.

Chikunga also raised concern about the delay in achieving Sustainable Development Goal 5, which aims to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls and is among the 37% of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) targets that will not be met by 2030.

She further warned that ongoing debt pressures carry the potential to push millions more women into extreme poverty, particularly as debt servicing costs continue to divert resources away from education, health, and other public goods.

“More recently, we gathered in New York for the annual Commission on the Status of Women to commemorate 30 years since Beijing. The general feeling was that of hope and fear, fear that the struggle for gender equality is facing a significant pushback from powerful corners,” Chikunga said.

The conference is taking place against the backdrop of the collective aspirations as reflected in critical global and regional frameworks, including the SDGs, the African Union’s Agenda 2063, South Africa's National Development Plan (NDP) 2030, G20’s 2025 priorities, as well as Key Priority 2 of the Working Group on the Empowerment of Women (Promoting Financial Inclusion of and for Women).

All of these key documents foreground financial inclusion as a catalyst for women's economic empowerment. –