Corporates urged to support women-led businesses

Sunday Mail Reporter

THE Women Owned Business Trust (WOBT) has called on corporates to consider doing business with women-led enterprises as this is critical in growing the economy.

Speaking during the WOBT Meet the Buyer Seminar in Harare on Friday, the trust’s founder and chairperson, Dr Divine Ndhlukula, said the organisation, which was founded in 2017, seeks to grow women-led businesses by linking them with possible buyers.

“It’s all about investing in each other through sales and, as a result, growing women-owned businesses and brands that can make a difference in the marketplace,” she said.

“I believe, if women are also included and if the companies that we are going to work with are really sincere about diversity and inclusion, businesses will easily grow. The whole idea is to drive money into the pockets of women, and the more money, the less problems we have in this world.”

Canada’s Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Mrs Christina Buchan, who was guest of honour, said women empowerment benefits the whole nation.

“Recently, I had a visitor who is more senior to me from my country and she met the Government of Zimbabwe and a number of organisations.

“For someone who normally deals with international development assistance and gender issues, one of the key messages she got here was about building economically sustainable projects for women,” she said.

“Women need jobs, so, one of her big takeaways was how do we build economic sustainability into the programming across the world in trade relationships and development systems?”

Canada, she said, is willing to enhance working with Zimbabwe in projects that support women.

“Canada is happy to engage and work with Zimbabwe in celebrating women and supporting their businesses. The more we support women, the better everyone benefits across all sectors such as health and education,” she said.

The event, which was attended by several women business leaders, ran under the theme “Linking women-owned enterprises to sustainable markets in corporate and Government supply chains”.