14 Jul 2021

SmartBots is gearing up towards upskilling women entrepreneurs with digital business solutions for trade development and sustenance. 

In pursuit of this initiative, SmartBots partnered with the EU  Africa Reform for Investment and Sustainable Economies (RISE) to deliver the Digital Business Package for Women Entrepreneurs.

In an interview on Friday, EU Africa RISE consultant in Botswana, Ms Sarah Kitakule said the programme aimed to improve an enabling environment to increase trade between Europe and Africa.

She confirmed that SmartBots was working in partnership with Africa RISE programme to deliver the project and ensure that women were included in the digital economy.

“Even before the corona pandemic, women were most likely to be excluded from the digital economy in comparison to their male counterparts, however, the pandemic increased the urgency of making sure that women are included,” she said.

Ms Kitakule added during lockdowns that many women found themselves suspending their businesses since their workstations were closed, but in other economies, some companies managed to transform themselves quickly to online services.

She indicated that women in business were mostly used to traditional ways of running their ventures, which included travelling to respective destinations across the globe in search of raw materials and products they traded in.

Thus, she said the presence of online services would create an enabling environment for women to operate their businesses from the comfort of their homes; a skill she indicated was critical, particularly in sustaining women businesses across Africa.

She enlisted unfamiliarity to social media as common hindrances to women operating their businesses online.

Ms Kitakule highlighted that the project would focus largely on identifying overall skills gap in e-commerce among women with ideal solutions to addressing each business hiccup.

In her analysis, Ms Kitakule underscored that 53 per cent of Botswana’s population was on Facebook and one would wonder why businesses were not thriving to optimum capability.

She explained that Facebook among other platforms posed a fair chance for people to attract potential customers. “If women businesses are going to be resilient they need to be online. Those that run businesses that are not online need to upskill and change their processes of operation,” she said.

Ms Kitakule said currently the organisation was conducting a survey, adding that a questionnaire had already been circulated for women in business to share their  challenges, skills gap and areas of improvement.

She said the process shall confirm further her discussion with more women and the ideal assistance to be crafted. 

Ms Kitakule said that in her interactions with Women in Business Association (WIBA) which has approximately 5 000 members, she discovered that sometimes women needed assistance in issues concerning setting up a WhatsApp platform.

She said this was worrisome because if women were still challenged in basic skills, then nothing else ought to be taken for granted.

Additionally, Ms Kitakule mentioned that the next level of skills after navigating the phone was utilising the different possibilities to sustain the business.

She said one should be in a good position to traverse an App for accounting purposes where one could input expenditures, generate accounting statements and pay suppliers to mention but a few.

Upon understanding the array of challenges, Ms Kitakule said the organisation would develop a package of solutions that would encompass access to the tools, ability to leverage and use them as well as the skills to start, build, grow and sustain a business.

Further, Ms Kitakule mentioned that part of their planning involved setting up a central place where women would access all services geared towards empowering them.

Also, she highlighted that thecompany was looking to digitise some courses to enable women to access them at their own time and use the available material to further develop themselves and their businesses.

She said for those women interested in one on one interaction with the consultants, she hoped the corona pandemic would clear and make way for such arrangements.

Ms Kitakule encouraged women to take advantage of SmartsBots programmes. Ends