The Sunday Mail
Trade Focus
Allan Majuru
WOMEN have been identified as key economic players who have the potential to contribute to the growth of Zimbabwe’s exports.
According to a report by the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation titled, “Women and Trade: The Role of Trade in Promoting Women’s Equality”, trade has the potential to expand women’s role in the economy, decrease inequality and expand women’s access to skills and education.
The same report states that targeted policies can help women maximise the benefits of trade.
Women empowerment is a catalyst for Zimbabwe’s economic development.
Women bring functionality to many operations.
In order to catalyse the development of women-led enterprises, there is need to provide assistance with skills development, development of income-generating skills and awareness activities.
As ZimTrade, our key mandate is to energise Zimbabwe’s export growth especially through the promotion of diversification from general products and penetration into non-traditional markets.
Recognising the need for equality and diversity in trade, ZimTrade has introduced various programmes targeted at increasing the participation of marginalised societal groups in trade.
Sustainable Development Goals also speak to the need for activities that intentionally benefit women and magnify their roles in societies.
When it comes to recognition, women need the appropriate forums to showcase their abilities.
Programmes such as the Female Export Masterclass (FEM2020) that aim to educate and capacitate women-led businesses show that there is hope for women to get into trade and play a role in increasing the country’s exports.
The FEM2020 programme was intentionally designed to capacitate women entrepreneurs with knowledge, skill, and insights on what it takes to transition from being a small business to one that can penetrate into different terrains and markets.
The 15 programme participants were involved in different sub-sectors along the agro-processing value chain.
Some were producers of raw materials/inputs, while others added value to the produce. The programme also aimed to improve value chain processes in the agro-processing sector and develop viable solutions to allow for product diversification and value addition.
Value chain development was a somewhat easy task because they were all in the processed foods sector and this also allowed for diversification to happen.
During the programme, it was discovered that value-added products that can obtain optimal value need infrastructure and equipment for scalability, this is where the necessary support comes in.
For example, a tomato processing plant was recently commissioned in Mutoko for value addition.
Similar plants can help women to increase production and value addition.
Empowering women requires providing them access to information and awareness on business-orientated issues.
This information needs to be availed on as many platforms as possible.
Women in rural areas have limited access to resources and usually rely on information shared through the radio.
However, the devolution agenda has brought about the opportunity to work with lower tiers of Government including at provincial and district levels.
The flow of information can guarantee that desired information reaches people in remote areas.
Additionally, facilities like the one in Mutoko, can be used as information hubs for educating women on how to access markets and the standard requirements for individual markets.
Such hubs can be equipped to allow for innovation, research, and even new product development.
One of the biggest challenges women face in business includes the lack of support, including financial, technical, and sometimes even emotional.
Some of these challenges were overcome during the FEM2020 programme by creating support systems for the individuals including mentorship from international experts who offered their services remotely.
Collaboration was the key constant throughout the programme.
Through this programme, participants managed to build their businesses for trade while empowering other women in various rural communities and create synergies and partnerships that resulted in sustainable community development.
Financial and technical support was obtained through various networks.
While the Covid-19 pandemic presented multiple challenges, it also brought opportunities for interlinking business systems and improving value chain systems.
The ladies achieved milestones in different ways in their personal capacities and managed to create networks to become suppliers of inputs for each other.
The results of the programme witnessed over half of the participants commencing exports to regional markets and the United Arab Emirates.
This proved that the FEM2020 programme was indeed a successful learning curve and a point of reference for future programmes.
As a result, ZimTrade is introducing a programme to stimulate the development of women-led enterprises from different sectors, with the exception of minerals and fuels/oils.
These women will undergo rigorous training to mould them into entrepreneurs that can run their businesses across different marketplaces.
The training will include technical assistance, marketing and branding for international competitiveness and matchmaking with mentors who will share their knowledge and skills.
The end goal will be to create sustainable enterprises.
Titled, The NEXT- She-Training Programme, it will address women’s needs in many ways including informational training from the perspective of financial management, packaging, marketing, negotiation skills, branding and finding exports markets; skills building in the form of business clinics, mentoring and business seminars that bring insight; resources, especially technical experts; and key connections to networks which will allow the women entrepreneurs to showcase their products on multiple platforms.
Throughout the programme, ZimTrade will continue to provide market access information especially on non-traditional markets, diversification and value addition opportunities, opportunities to attend trade fairs and assistance with issues deterring the ease of doing business.
The key role remains to offer services for the growth of exports and ensure that everyone gets an equal opportunity to participate in reviving the Zimbabwean economy.
Allan Majuru is the ZimTrade chief executive.
