Post Covid 19 Transformative Strategies on Sustainability of Women Owned Beauty and Cosmetics SMEs in Upper Mount Kenya Counties, Kenya

The year 2020 marks the silver jubilee of the Beijing Platform for Action, and was expected to be a moment to celebrate the milestones made in enhancing gender parity and opportunities. However, the effects of COVID-19 pandemic threaten to erode the minimal gains achieved this far. Amidst COVID-19, Women-led enterprises across Africa have significantly been impacted. UN Women, conducted a survey on women SME owners across 30 African countries which revealed that most women-led SMEs are at risk of permanent business shutdown as a result of the pandemic. The pandemic, initially was health hazard, fast mutated to a twin-menace that would threaten both lives and livelihoods. Global stock markets plunged in value by about US$6 trillion in less than a week (24th to 28th February 2020), according to S & P Dow Jones Indices with many yet to recover. The pandemic decelerated Kenyas projected GDP growth which resulted to Central Bank of Kenya revising its estimate for 2020 from the initial 6.2% to 3.4%. Most affected were Small and Medium Enterprises; due to limited resources that disabled them to withstand prolonged uncertainty and multi-faceted restrictions, as a result of the pandemic. Key among the ventures threatened with extinction are women owned small and Medium Enterprises that faced numerous post-pandemic challenges. The inevitable priority shift to women entrepreneurs, diversion of business funds, sharp decline in demand and supply of commodities, together with costly production. The research reviewed the impact of post COVID-19 on women owned Beauty and cosmetics enterprises in upper Mount Kenya counties on the basis of affordable credit facilities, networking and Market innovativeness, different sectors had their ways in which women enterprises had been affected by the pandemic. Theories supporting this magnitude of impact are limited too; with the closest being resource dependency theory, structural inertia theory and real options theory. The study applied both primary and secondary data collection method on a sample of 35 respondents. Findings based on the study objectives revealed that women owned enterprises are disproportionately affected by the pandemic. The study recommends advancement on networking, creating environment and culture for innovation and resource interventions to help women owned SMEs upscale them from post -Covid effect and necessary preparations for re-occurrence of similar pandemics in future.