The Minister of Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development, Sithembiso Nyoni has urged women to take advantage of the Women Empowerment Summit and Expo to be held from 7 to 8 December in Harare to create business partnerships.
The summit being held in partnership with the National Economic Consultative Forum will bring stakeholders from different sectors of the economy to deliberate on challenges and opportunities for women while recommending interventions to promote sustainable female led businesses.
Addressing the press on Monday, Minister of Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development, Sithembiso Nyoni said the Summit will bring stakeholders together to deliberate on policy and technical issues affecting women’s participation in economic activities, in order to promote inclusive development and attain Vision 2030.
“The Women Empowerment Summit will run under the theme, “Revitalizing Economic Growth through Women Empowerment’’, and its broad objective is to deliberate on challenges and opportunities affecting Zimbabwean women and to recommend interventions to promote the growth of sustainable female led or female owned businesses in order to leave no one and no place behind in the process of development,” she said.
Nyoni said the summit will also discuss financial inclusion of women and challenges they encounter in accessing capital to venture into businesses.
“The two day Summit will have presentations, panel discussions and high-level discussions among critical stakeholders on promoting production and value chain development, financial Inclusion and access to capital for Production and Trade, promoting standards, compliance and access to Regional and International markets and use of ICT’s as a tool for Improved Production and competitiveness,” said Nyoni.
The Summit will be attended by government representatives, UN agencies, business organizations, women business associations, development partners, the Academia, civil society, members of the diplomatic corps and the private sector.
