I recently played golf for the first time in years. It was at a Women in Business Golf Day hosted by TravelNarine at Serengeti Golf Estate, surrounded by businesswomen who had packed up their products to set up stalls and shown up on a Saturday to connect with other women doing the same thing.
My dad (briefly) worked at a golf course when I was a kid. So when the crash course started, I was happy to report the muscle memory was still there.
But the golf was almost beside the point.
The funding gap
Women own about 21% of businesses in South Africa.
That sounds reasonable until you look at the funding side. The funding gap for women entrepreneurs in Sub-Saharan Africa sits at $42 billion (approximately R700 billion).
Not funding. The funding gap.
The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor has found that women in South Africa are among the most innovative and high-growth entrepreneurs in the world.
So the gap does not stem from our talent or ideas, but rather from the capital and the networks women are exluded from.
In 2024, women-led African startups raised only $48 million, representing 2% of total venture capital on the continent.
The pipeline exists and the ambition exists but the capital doesn’t follow.
It disappears somewhere between women proving themselves and men backing people who look like them. It’s the gap between women doing work and men controlling where the money goes. And it shows.
Business golf has historically been one of those rooms. It has, also historically, not been one for women.
Travel Narine’s Women in Business event
Some might look at events like these and just see a nice day out. But these events are a deliberate act of closing a gap that formal funding structures are not closing fast enough.
The exhibitors at this event ranged from Dr Kile Mteto of South African Women in Plumbing to Portia Molepo of Dignity Pads to Irish Khosana of Queens in Tourism.
Women from different industries but one common thread: women building something and finding other women doing the same.
My partner for the day was Wilma Marindile of Wellness Drive. I contributed TechNation News merch and a custom NFC tag to the prize pool. When the winner was announced, I programmed it for her right there on the spot.
Because apparently the tech founder had to tech.
Most business networking events have an atmosphere of performance. This was more aobut showing up and being in the room (or the golf course) with other women who could relate.
More of this please
I posted about this the week of the event and said I would write something proper. Because a caption is not enough for what these spaces actually do.
TravelNarine’s Women in Business Golf Day brought together women-owned businesses and offered a fun day of golf, open to all skill levels.
It created a space where a massage therapist, a cosmetics founder, a wellness councillor, a security company owner and many others could be in the same space, talking.
That is not a small thing.
We need more events like this and more coverage of them. And we need more women showing up to them because the funding gap is not going to close itself.
