16 Mar 2020

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) endorsed a collective initiative: The Buenos Aires Declaration on Trade and Women’s Economic Empowerment in December 2017.

Botswana, through the Ministry of Investmen, Trade and Industry (MITI), endorsed the declaration in October 2018.

The Minister of Investment Trade and Industry, Ms Peggy Serame said this when giving a keynote address at a seminar organised to raise awareness on the She Trade Programme as build up towards launch of the Botswana She Trade Chapter.

The seminar enabled women in business to share experiences in their respective areas of trade.

She noted that the aim of She Trade was to connect three million women entrepreneurs and women owned business to international markets by next year.

“Through this programme, the International Trade Center (ITC) works with government, cooperations and business support organisations, to undertake research, shape enabling trade policies and regulations, facilitating financing and expand access to public tenders and supply chains,” she said.

Ms Serame said the initiative operated through seven global actions aimed at unlocking markets for women.

They include champion quality data, enacting fair policies, securing government contracts, striking business deals, enabling market access, unlocking financial services and granting ownership rights.

She further said the ITC She Trade initiative was implemented in two folds being the country chapter, which entailed capacity building for women in trade and integrating them into international markets and the She

Trade outlook which was an innovative policy tool that sought to identify best practices in policies to be shared among participating countries.

Meanwhile, Woman in Business Association (WIBA) president, Ms Nametso Carr, said in interview that it was through a questionnaire sent by the She Woman in Trade that WIBA was able to work and collaborate with She Trade.

She noted it was after the questionnaire that she was invited to Ethiopia by the African Continental Free Trade Association for bench marking.

She said WIBA has produced women who are active in the sectors of mining, textile, construction and agriculture to just a few and noted that they expected She Trade to assist them to grow and grow their business.

In an effort to grow the agricultural sector, Ms Carr said WIBA signed a Memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Agriculture in the North West province, South Africa to assist them grow the sector further.

She stated that they had a good relationship with Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) which has been assisting WIBA to grow The Small Medium and Micro Enterprise (SMME) in terms of labeling and ISO standard (International Organisation for Standardisation).

WIBA hosted a delegation from Namibia which came to bench mark from them and Ms Carr further explained that the Botswana Investment and Trade Center (BITC) invited investors whom WIBA could share ideas, network and report back to BITC LEA and Ministry of Investment Trade and Industry.

Ms Carr also said in the sector of construction, the ministry had given WIBA a platform in all their pitso to share their challenges.

Deputy in MITI, Ms Shelly Moncho, said women were committed to implementation of the She Trade Chapter for Botswana as they believed it would enable integration of their businesses in the global value chain. 

She noted that women had meaningful deliberations the few times they meet following the establishment of the National Committee on She Trade Chapter in December 2019.

Ms Moncho explaining that the seminar was to bring out to the surface what the ministry had been working on together with women in business behind scenes. She said women economic empowerment and upliftment was among government priorities as one of the vulnerable groups. She said the land policy was recently reviewed to allow ownership of land by married women. Ends