Work with women, Comesa told
Published On February 27, 2014 » 4312 Views» By Administrator Times » Latest News, Stories
 0 stars
Register to vote!
• First Lady Dr Christine Kaseba (left) being greeted by First Lady of DR Congo, Olive Lembe Kabila during the Seventh First Spouse Roundtable of Comesa Summit at FLeuve Congo Hotel in Kinshasa-Picture by THOMAS NSAMA.

• First Lady Dr Christine Kaseba (left) being greeted by First Lady of DR Congo, Olive Lembe Kabila during the Seventh First Spouse Roundtable of Comesa Summit at FLeuve Congo Hotel in Kinshasa-Picture by THOMAS NSAMA.

By PERPETUAL SICHIKWENKWE –

FIRST Lady Christine Kaseba has implored the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) to involve women in the Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) as a catalyst to improve their standard of living.
Dr Kaseba said despite the strides that COMESA member states were making to strengthen an entrepreneurship culture, there was need to further examine the gender barriers that cause women exclusion from mainstream entrepreneurship.
The First Lady, who is in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), was speaking on Wednesday at the seventh COMESA first spouses’ roundtable meeting under the theme “Consolidating Intra-Comesa Trade through Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise Development”.
President Sata is among other leaders attending the 17th COMESA Heads of States and Government summit in Kinshasa.
Dr Kaseba said there was no doubt that entrepreneurship was subject to negative stereotypes because it was always misconstrued that when one talked about female entrepreneurship, then it was all about selling foodstuffs along the a road side.
“Women entrepreneurs are overlooked and undervalued and in many instances they have to grapple with low levels of financing” she said.
Dr Kaseba said direct equity financing sources and seed money to start up the MSMEs usually came from friends, professional contacts and families which was not sustainable.
She said women who engaged in MSMEs were able to finance their expansion through their cash flow as such, they had to explore external sources of funding.
“Unfortunately most women lack the substantial assert base (collateral) to provide as security against loans,” Dr Kaseba said.
Dr Kaseba called for the scaling up of affirmative action for women entrepreneurs, adding that she looked forward to a day when women entrepreneurs would be acknowledged and their achievements celebrated.
She said the Zambian Government was carrying out a number of activities to promote MSMEs in the country.
She said it was a well known fact despite diversity in terms of economic weight of SMES from country to country, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSMES) play an important role in the economic and social development of individual countries.
She said that MSME sub sector was contributing significantly to job creation especially in areas were formal employment was no longer able to absorb job seekers.
Dr Kaseba said although women took up 89 per cent of employment in the informal sector, the majority were engaged in small-scale trade.
Host First Lady Marie Olive Lembe Kabila said women need finances to participate in entrepreneurship.
Ms Kabila said she was happy that COMESA had continued to recognise women in most of its activities.

Share this post
Tags

About The Author