14 Sep 2016

Women entrepreneurs and fellow network advocacy have been encouraged to take advantage of The African Women’s Entrepreneurship Programme (AWEP) Botswana Chapter to grow their businesses and use the channels provided by the US Embassy to export to the international market.

Officially opening the AWEP  workshop in Maun on Tuesday (September 13), the US ambassador, Mr Earl Miller said AWEP was a trade and investment flagship programme initiated by the US department of state in 2010 as a professional exchange programme aimed at empowering and promoting business women participation internationally.

“I am excited to see that the chapter is forging ahead in empowering women entrepreneurs across the country to compete in international markets,” he said.

The chapter trained women in Kasane, Francistown and Selebi Phikwe prior to Maun.

The initiative funded through USAID, he said, offered professional networking, business development and trade capacity building opportunities for networks of prominent female entrepreneurs across Sub-Saharan Africa.

Ambassador Miller pointed out that AWEP was formed to address lack of participation of women in the African Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA).

He said both AGOA and the Generalised System of Preferences offered unilateral tariff-free access of about 7 000 export categories.

“We are pleased that Batswana exports to the US under AGOA increased by over 50% in recent years and we hope this will continue to rise,” he said.

Ambassador Miller noted that the AWEP local chapter was purported to capacitate women to export goods and services especially sectors of arts and crafts, agro-business, apparel and textile, hospitality and tourism and cleaning services.

He said the US Embassy has been able to send AWEP participants to the United States for a period of two weeks professional exchange called the International Visitor Leadership Program (VIP).

 AWEP Botswana Chairperson Ms Chigedze Chinyepi said AWEP targeted women eligible for AGOA in about 34 African countries including Botswana.

She said AWEP which bridges the gap for women partnership in AGOA was launched in locally in 2015.

Ms Chinyepe said AWEP fosters leadership for women business organisations, advocacy and empowerment amongst others. ENDS