With efforts to empower women on the rise, Comesa has joined in on the act and will be launching a platform targeting entrepreneurial women. The initiative is meant to empower women around the region and it was also launched in Malawi a few days ago.
Implementation of the 50MWS project will be handled by three regional bodies in 36 countries. The bodies are:
- COMESA (Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa)
- EAC (East African Community)
- Ecowas (Economic Community for Western African States)
What’s the purpose of 50MWS?
The 50MWS platform is supposed to make it easier for women entrepreneurs to connect. The hope is that this platform will also make peer-to-peer learning and mentoring much easier since there will be an online application that comes.
When will it be available
Though the 50MWS was ‘launched’ on Tuesday the platform is not yet actually available to download. The platform will be available at a later date and Comesa’s director for Gender and Social Affairs Beatrice Simwapenga said:
The 50 Million Women Speak Digital Networking Platform will be accessed through electronic gadgets such as mobile phones, iPads, laptops and others. Women entreprenuers in Zimbabwe and the region will use the platform to access information and linkages to business services training and market opportunities.
Furthermore it will provide interface between women and financial service providers thus promoting easy access to financial services.
All the information one needs when starting or aiming to grow their business will be available on this platform.
Why announce something if it’s not there yet?
I’m not sure if it’s lack of exposure on my part, but I really feel the issue of launching products and services and then the service not being available or at least having a timeline of availability is very frustrating. That’s the same reason why there was a lot of confusion after the WiBroniks launch.
Another problem that stems from these false-start launches is that when the service eventually launches whoever is offering that product has to make noise about it because people might have already forgotten about the platform.
Anyway, it’s great that this is happening and we will keep a lookout for the 50MWS application and once it’s out we will test it and give our thoughts as.
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SITARA FOODS, http://www.sitarafoods.com We are a home made pickle brand based out of Badrachalam of Andhra Pradesh, now Telangana. We would like to see if we can guest blog, guest post our recipes once in a while to get little exposure in the audiences. We are 3 educated house wives trying to provide employment for rural women and create a financial support to village house hold women. We are supported from Government of India as a recognised women empowerment start up. What we do is we employ local women from near by villages and make them learn how to prepare traditional pickles, spice powders, snacks and sweets as per the formula. All of our raw materials & ingredients are sourced from local farmers and thus by providing employment and financial support to the rural household women