BBWEE will uplift women

document, he was spot on when he said it would be folly to ignore or deny women “the right to meaningful participation in the mainstream economy of the country”.
This was a milestone for Zimbabwean women who for long had been undermined in issues of development and economic empowerment.
To me this was also the endorsement of the 1997 Sadc Declaration on Gender and Development, at the highest level, to which Zimbabwe is a signatory.
For those who may not be familiar with the document, Sadc Declaration on Gender and Development among other things mandates leaders to promote women’s full access to and control over, productive resources such as land, livestock, markets, credit, modern technology, formal employment, and a good quality of life. This has to be done in order to reduce the level of poverty among women.
The Sadc region also identified the need to eliminate “inequalities in access to economic structures, policies and all forms of productive resources and activities at all levels,” among its regional critical areas of concern.
According to the declaration, governments and states in the region are therefore obliged to ensure that their countries realise the commitments related to women’s economic empowerment.
Like other commitments that have been made before, this one was born out of the need to improve the lives of women across political and social divides.
Governments realised that although they had policies, legal instruments, to promote access to and control over productive resources such as land, livestock, credit, formal employment, and good quality of life, there were still economic inequalities, resulting in women living in abject poverty.
Each member country also noted that access to credit remained a serious challenge to women and by and large, the majority of women remained vulnerable to exploitation, in their attempts to access credit. Even in a case where a woman wanted to buy second hand clothes for resale or start a vegetable stall, she had to rely on family and/or community solidarity, to kick-start her small project.
They have been notable achievements in some member countries, with Mauritius and South Africa, having made some milestone achievements in both the economic and political arena.
It is within the same spirit that the Government and several stakeholders put their heads together and came up with the Broad Based Women’s Economic Empowerment Framework (BBWEE).
Going through the document, I couldn’t help, but marvel at the effort that was put in coming up with a comprehensive and a highly incisive document that maps out, the strategic interventions of BBWEE.
The framework has four main strategic interventions  where strategic objectives, priority actions and actors have been formulated.
Some of the strategic interventions include enhancing women business ownership or entreprenuership, facilitating the participation of women in key economic decision making positions and ensuring employment equity.
It also seeks to assist women from disadvantaged backgrounds to participate and benefit from viable informal and livelihoods activities.
Because of the varying economic activities that BBWEE will be engaged in, it is going to be implemented in stages and by various actors.
Some activities are immediate, while others are set for medium (2-3 years) and long term (4-6 years) and this will largely depend on the level of resources that need to be mobilised or the time the activities, take to yield results.
The document is good, but it needs more than political commitment to ensure that it is implemented at all levels. It will have to start with the women themselves to spearhead the framework, within their own communities, before they can further push it at national level for implementation.
In other words, women will need to cultivate amongst themselves a team spirit, where they can assist each other in identifying viable projects, mentor and support each other.
There is need for a paradigm shift on how women view and regard themselves in this economic game. They should not be content in running small enterprises like poultry projects, market gardening, salons, retails shops, and nursery schools, but will need to think and dream big.
They will now need to look at the major economy driving sectors like mining, information communication technology, and tourism, manufacturing, agriculture and other sectors that feed into these money-spinning sectors.
During the launch some ministers openly admitted in the presence of President Mugabe that such opportunities existed for women and all they needed was to express their interests.
Surely life doesn’t come as good as this. Of course there might have been previous women economic empowerment initiatives that never took off, because of various reasons, but this time it appears that the dynamics have changed and women may soon find themselves on the economic pedestal.
There is no doubt of course that the framework will be faced with a number of challenges and they may be prophets of doom who may want to derail the programme for their own selfish gains, but there                         is enough political willpower to kick-start the initiative.
It is that political will and self-motivation that women will need to change their waning fortunes.
And when Government and other players start directing money to women, they should know that they are not directing money to women as victims of poverty, but they are being empowered to be agents of their own advancement and improvement — in their own communities and their families.
In a country where 52 percent of the population is made up of women, there is no doubt that the cake may not be enough for everyone, but those with the extra-drive, determination, strategically positioned will certainly lay hands on some of the opportunities espoused in the framework.
Andrew Carnegie, the Scottish self-made tycoon and philanthropist, was indeed right when he said when opportunities present themselves “the first man will get the oyster, while the second man gets the shell”.