The Sunday Mail
Linda Mzapi
WOMEN should lead the way in business by upholding godly principles, Global Business Roundtable (GBR) chair Mr Sipho Mseleku has said. Mr Mseleku said this at last week’s second edition of the annual Women of Character Global Business Roundtable in Harare. Women of Character falls under GBR, which started as a discussion forum in 2009. GBR is a God-centred global business network.
Present at the meeting were bsuinesswomen from Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi and South Africa.
Mr Mseleku said, “I encourage you to continue fighting the good fight because the role and power that women possess is unimaginable. As a woman you should be able to stand on your own because God does not call groups but individuals. And God makes no junk so you all are great people.”
Mr Mseleku spoke about how he started GBR with the intention of putting Jesus at the centre of everything.
“It started in 2009 when I invited different people in different professions to come together and discuss problems faced in business, then find solutions and pray together.
“I worked in the Chambers of Commerce as a CEO in South Africa and I represented businesspeople. But what I discovered is that God was not at the centre of what we used to do. We hardly prayed and hardly spoke about God and as a result we moved in circles,” he said.
Mr Mseleku said people were only looking out for their own interests.
“Gifts and talents are deposited in us by God so if we deny God we are denying the very gifts we have and denying our actual being because we were created in his image. We decided that God would be at the centre of everything we do whether its business, family and career.”
Mrs Eve Mutsvangwa, speaking on behalf of SMEs and Co-operatives Development Minister Dr Sithembiso Nyoni, said women-owned businesses comprised up to 38 percent of all registered small businesses worldwide.
She also said women performed 66 percent of the world’s work and produced 50 percent of food, yet earned just 10 percent of income and owned one percent of property.
Speaking to The Sunday Mail Religion, Women of Character chair Ms Nomsa Yehuda said, “We bring Jesus into the picture because our very foundation is Christ as women within GBR who have a fellowship with Jesus. We are not a secular movement, but a godly movement with a kingdom mandate.
“We discovered that if wealth rested on women with no character it would vanish quickly, leaving woman poorer. So we decided to build women intellectually and spiritually and train them to have a proper mindset for business.
“We look at the holistic development of a godly woman based on Proverbs 31:10-13. Within those verses we see that God is interested in our spiritual, intellectual as well as entrepreneurship development considering buying a field and feeding her family.”
Research this year by the United Nations Development Programme and commissioned by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation shows that if women had the same access to productive resources as men, they could increase yields on farms by 20-30 percent. This would raise total agricultural output in developing countries by 2,5 to four percent, which would in turn reduce the number of hungry people in the world by 12-17 percent.
According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, African women are responsible for 70 percent of crop production, 50 percent of animal husbandry, and 60 percent of agricultural commodities marketing.
In households, women undertake nearly 100 percent of food processing activities, in addition to child-bearing, child care, and other responsibilities.
GBR global elder Apostle Alexander Chisango said the success of last week’s meeting made a good report for the country and Zimbabwean women.
“The quality and standard of the summit is a statement to the world that Zimbabwe is an international destination. It speaks of endorsement and confidence in the capacity of Zimbabwe as a destination for investments and the church advancing Zim-Asset,” he said.
