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Kay Kaseke Business Reporter
THE Common Market for East and Southern Africa (Comesa) secretariat will soon launch the Women Economic Empowerment Fund which is set to provide loans to women entrepreneurs in the region. The Minister of Small and Medium Enterprises and Co-operative Development, Cde Sithembiso Nyoni, said that the fund would benefit women in Zimbabwe running small businesses as micro-small businesses were a means of ending poverty and creating jobs to eradicate poverty among women.
“They are not only engines of economic growth but they are ending poverty, driving the economy and creating jobs for women who are victims of poverty,” she said.
She said, according to the World Bank, SMEs had created about 5,7 million jobs in Zimbabwe and contributed more than 60 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
The assistant secretary general of administration and finance, Ambassador Nagla El-Hussainy, said the fund would operate as a guarantee fund and would also enable women to undertake training in business skills.
She disclosed this during the 7th Comesa First Spouses Round Table held on the sidelines of the 17th Comesa Heads of State Summit in Kinshasa recently.
“The fund is in line with Comesa industrialisation programmes which recognise the role of micro-small and medium enterprises development in economic development through job and wealth creation,” she said.
Ambassador Nagla called on all Comesa First Spouses to continue lobbying their respective governments to put in place policies and other regulatory frameworks that will create a conducive environment for women to grow their businesses.
Ambassador Nagla lamented that women had continued to face serious challenges in accessing finance, high transport costs and a hostile business environment.
“The ability for women entrepreneurs to enter value chain and upgrade into higher-value activities is complicated by limited access to key inputs, such as land, finance and market information,” she observed.
She said this year’s theme of the summit; “Consolidating intra-Comesa trade through micro, small and medium enterprise development”, was set as a target to benefit women entrepreneurs in the region.
The First Spouses Roundtable was established in 2004 under Article 154 of the Comesa Treaty. The article affirms that there cannot be meaningful rural transformation without the equal full participation of women, men and youth.
Bongani Ndlovu