The Sunday Mail
Trade Focus
Allan Majuru
“REMOVING the barriers that keep women and girls on the margins of economic, social, cultural and political life must be a top priority for us all-businesses, governments, the United Nations and civil society.”
This call made in 2015 by former UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, is a reminder that inclusive economic growth requires an enabling environment where both men and women are able to perform to the best of their abilities.
This past week, the world celebrated the International Women’s Day, which has grown much more than what it represented a decade ago.
The voices are becoming louder and the evidence is clear that empowering women economically will improve the livelihoods of all people and contribute to poverty reduction.
The International Trade Centre (ITC) notes that women play a major role in the global economy because they “invest more in their families than men do, in areas such as education, health and nutrition, creating a secure foundation for the future of their families and communities.”
Considering this contribution, ITC concludes that “empowering women economically, especially through their involvement in trade, creates job opportunities for everyone.” What is crucial now is transforming the voices into action, ensuring that actual opportunities are made available to women, particularly around economic areas such as production, manufacturing, and value-addition.
Studies show that economies with equal opportunities for both men and women are competitive in export businesses.
For Zimbabwe, unlocking economic opportunities for women is much more than a poverty reduction issue, as women have potential to contribute more towards growing the nation’s exports, thereby earning the country the much needed foreign currency.
In line with global practices, the Second Republic through the National Development Strategy (NDS1), launched by President Mnangagwa last year, is prioritising gender issues in line with the theme of “leaving no-one and no place behind”.
Programmes to be implemented under the NDS1 are expected to, among other things; grow women participation in the economy across all sectors; and provide equal opportunities for women.
An inclusive approach to
international trade
Involving women in international trade is crucial and developing capacities of women-led businesses will improve their access to international markets.
There is need, therefore, to address the challenges that limit the participation of Zimbabwean women in international trade, where ITC estimates that, globally, only one-in-five exporting companies is owned by a woman.
Research has shown that there are high chances women-owned businesses will face more obstacles to trade, such as limited access to finance; limited access to land and freehold property; in addition to legal, cultural, and patriarchal barriers.
Women-centred programmes should therefore be designed to ensure that their share of national export earnings grows.
Currently, there are several ongoing programmes that are targeting to improve the contribution of women-led business to national exports, such as the Food for Export Masterclass 2020 implemented by ZimTrade in partnership with Dutch Embassy in Harare, Zimbabwe Agricultural Development Trust (ZADT), Hivos, and the Netherlands-based PUM.
The programme is designed to build capacity of 20 female entrepreneurs in various aspects of horticulture, dairy production, food processing, and food export business.
The target is to transform these 20 women-owned agri-food enterprises into successful exporters using the latest production methods and business practices.
Selected women-owned businesses will receive support from ZimTrade in several areas of export competitiveness such as marketing, branding and negotiation.
Further to this, of the companies that took part in ZimTrade’s capacity building interventions in 2020 alone, 47 percent were either women-led or women-owned businesses.
Under the ZimTrade-run Eagles’ Nest Youth Export Incubation Programme, there is a special focus on female young entrepreneurs under the age of 35 from across different sectors.
Although these programmes will improve the position of women-led business in export earnings, much more needs to be done, particularly around improving access to factors of production.
Improving access to factors of production
The participation of women in key production and value-chain process is a pre-requisite for growing exports.
However, this participation is often hindered by historical imbalances that have seen far fewer women with access to factors of production, such as land and production infrastructure.
The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Implementation Strategy for Zimbabwe notes that “women are disproportionately impacted by numerous challenges, including limited access to and cost of finance, lack of marketing skills and market knowledge, and inadequate management.”
Other challenges affecting women-led businesses are inadequate “entrepreneurial skills, lack of access to infrastructure, lack of access to land, inappropriate technology, lack of information and a hostile regulatory environment.”
If the nation is to grow its exports from the agriculture sector, there is no doubt that improving women’s access to land is crucial.
There is need to have a gendered approach to land distribution, where deliberate programmes are put in place to increase the number of female land-owners and farmers.
Apart from the challenges of land ownership, few women also own infrastructure necessary for bigger manufacturing or value-addition processes.
This has resulted in most women-led businesses being small-business, producing quantities that might not meet demand.
Limited access to infrastructure and capital equipment by women continues to affect their contribution.
Women-led businesses also face challenges in accessing lines of credits, which affects their potential to upgrade to much bigger manufacturing businesses.
Conventional funding options often require collateral, making it difficult for women to access funding.
To address this, financing partners will need to remodel their requirements so that business potential alone is enough collateral to access funding.
Increasing partnerships between women and financing partners will also improve the flow of resources towards women-led businesses, which in turn will improve production and exports.
Improving access to markets
One critical component of improving exports from women-led businesses is increasing promotional activities around their products and services in export markets.
Already, ZimTrade is facilitating for more women-led businesses to take part in export promotion activities taking place in the continent and beyond this year, where they will meet with international buyers, understand market needs and strike orders.
Allan Majuru is ZimTrade’s chief executive.
