{"id":3279,"date":"2019-12-12T08:36:15","date_gmt":"2019-12-12T08:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gracamacheltrust.org\/?p=3279"},"modified":"2026-01-23T09:09:40","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T07:09:40","slug":"entrepreneurs-raising-the-bar-of-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.gbstudio.co.za\/gmt\/featured\/entrepreneurs-raising-the-bar-of-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Entrepreneurs raising the bar of success through Women in Trade E-commerce training"},"content":{"rendered":"
Women in Trade learn E-commerce as business goes online<\/h5>\n
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Women in Trade Workshop<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

Having successfully incubated the Women in Trade, as one of the networks under the Women Economic and Social Advancement (WESA) Project, our Women in Trade project, in partnership with the United Parcel Services (UPS) continued, with workshops took place in four countries Nigeria, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Malawi during October 2019.<\/p>\n

This project aims to introduce and orientate women in business and trade, to E-commerce opportunities with a particular focus on the International Trade Centre (ITC)\u2019s Shetrades Platform, which seeks to connect one million women entrepreneurs to the markets by 2020. Shetrades uses a multipronged approach including advocacy and empowerment. They have seven global actions that serve as their roadmap for women\u2019s economic empowerment in which governments, the private sector and civil society groups are challenged to make concrete pledges to remedy obstacles hampering women-owned businesses.<\/p>\n

In Malawi, the E-commerce workshop took place on 09 October 2019, with 52 participants attending, including the Network of African Business Women (NABW) board members, under the leadership of Barbara Banda, Chairperson of the Non-Governmental Organization’s Gender Coordination Network in Malawi. In her opening remarks NABW Board Chairperson, Susan Mkandawire, said NABW wants to position itself as a conduit in smart trading, based on the understanding that business has now moved from being door to door to using technology.<\/p>\n

During the workshop, a UPS representative advised that UPS is not the cheaper way of doing business but that it offers reliable and efficient movement of goods internationally.\u00a0 The women also got to hear about the \u2018Fifty Million African Women Speak Project\u2019 and the opportunity for NABW members to access to the platform and they say this is the first step to making E-Commerce a reality. \u00a0Fifty Million Women Speak project is an online platform that will provide financial and non-financial information to women entrepreneurs, for them to interact and grow their businesses.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe benefitted a lot from the energy of the young women and the excitement of networking and finding our moments was around us, we also benefitted from the policy framework and government’s pathway for the future\u201d, Barbra Banda said.<\/p>\n

Stakeholders deliberate to address challenges faced by women business, trade and export<\/h5>\n
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From Left: With New Faces New Voices (NFNV) \u2013 Nigeria Member, Board of trustees Mrs Celia Akintomide, GMT CEO Dr Shungu Gwarinda, UPS Special Projects Manager for West Africa Mr Ralph Uzuode , Country Director NFNV Nigeria Aishatu Debola Aminu, Head \u2013 Women in Export NEPC Mrs Leticia Onu and NFNV -Nigeria National Secretary \u2013 Yetunde Okafor.<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

In Nigeria the event was even bigger. \u00a0It took place on 24 \u2013 25 November 2015 where about 300 women entrepreneurs from across West Africa converged in Lagos on the first-ever Women in Business, Export and Finance (WIBEF) Summit, convened by Gra\u00e7a Machel Trust (GMT)\u2019s Network, New Faces New Voices (NFNV) Nigeria \u2013 supported by United Parcel Services (UPS), aimed at skilling West African women entrepreneurs towards improving their access to business, finance and market opportunities.<\/em><\/p>\n

The summit themed \u201cbuild locally, think globally\u201d was aimed at addressing the challenges faced by West African women in business, trade, export, and finance \u2013 considering women`s inability to adequately access market and finance opportunities in the sub region, which hinders the growth of their businesses.<\/p>\n

The two-day event featured paper presentations, side exhibitions by women-owned businesses, as well as capacity-building sessions for women entrepreneurs on a wide-range of topics namely, financial management for women-owned Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs); understanding competitive advantage in business; as well as developing a roadmap for business survival and growth, amongst others.<\/p>\n

It was a platform for women in business, export and finance to brainstorm on how to tackle the challenges faced by women owned small and medium enterprises and to learn on how to facilitate a access to finance, develop quality products, leverage technology to drive their sales and marketing, and to manage their resources efficiently.<\/p>\n

The summit\u2019s keynote address \u201cAfrican Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA)\u201d was delivered by Mrs Cecilia Akintomide, former African Development Bank (AfDB)\u2019s Secretary General and Vice President and current NFNV Nigeria\u2019s Board of Trustees, who described the AfCFTA as one of only few continental agreements that specifically incorporated gender equality as a pathway towards achieving sustainable economic growth in Africa. She also said that the AfCFTA must take cognisance of the vital role of women in the economy; otherwise, it would not achieve its lofty objectives.<\/p>\n

Our very own Dr Shungu Gwarinda, GMT\u2019s Interim CEO was also a guest speaker at the summit and she stated that collaboration and building partnerships among women entrepreneurs was essential for the growth of women-owned businesses and harnessing the benefits of the AfCFTA for sustainable economic growth on the continent.<\/p>\n

While speaking on \u2018Collaboration as a strategy for global impact,\u2019 she identified well-defined collaboration as key for accelerated business growth.<\/p>\n

\u201cSimply put, collaboration involves how businesses and organizations can leverage each other`s resources, networks, and even customers because it is very resource- intensive. So, we are supporting [African] women to formalize their businesses. But as business women they must leverage their strengths and resources \u2013 that\u2019s why we have this Pan-African network: NFNV is a collaborative platform for women in business and finance, so that women can engage, share information and business opportunities, as well as learn and build partnerships with one another,\u201d Dr. Gwarinda said on African Newspage<\/em><\/strong> website.<\/p>\n

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Women at the Market place during the Summit<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

Learn more about the Gra\u00e7a Machel Trust’s Women’s Economic and Social Advancement Programme<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Women in Trade learn E-commerce as business goes online Having […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3281,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_rtcl_gb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[742,4,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogs","category-featured","category-womens-economic-and-social-advancement-highlight"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.gbstudio.co.za\/gmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.gbstudio.co.za\/gmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.gbstudio.co.za\/gmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.gbstudio.co.za\/gmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.gbstudio.co.za\/gmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.gbstudio.co.za\/gmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.gbstudio.co.za\/gmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.gbstudio.co.za\/gmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.gbstudio.co.za\/gmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.gbstudio.co.za\/gmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}