Reflections on Enabling Legislative Regimes for African Women-Owned Businesses: A Post-COVID-19 Perspective

The COVID-19 regulation and policy directives in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region were a catalyst to the non-survival of many African women-owned businesses. The strict lockdown measures contributed to the failure of numerous women-owned businesses in the region. The chapter reflects on the importance of gender-sensitive legislative regimes, and how these can assist in supporting the sustainability drive of African women-owned businesses in the SADC region in the post-COVID-19 era. The chapter is underpinned by the Feminist and Capability theories, which are powerful tools for understanding the dynamics of business survival from a gendered perspective. These theories are used to analyse the ways in which gender roles, power dynamics, and social norms shape the success of businesses. The chapter’s conclusions indicate that gender-sensitive legislation helps in uplifting women and other vulnerable members of society, and that a gender-focused regulatory framework could assist the SADC region in meeting the SDGs and the AU Agenda 2063, to create the Africa that we want. The chapter makes recommendations on gender-sensitive legislative framework that could be used to sustain African women-owned businesses in the post-COVID-19 era.