THE PROFESSIONAL Women Executive and Women Business Forum (Proweb) launched its Bulawayo chapter on Friday amid pomp and ceremony with delegates calling on the female folk to pool resources together to revive some of the closed industries in the city.
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Attended by more than 100 female business people and executives, Proweb used the occasion to also launch a business e-directory in an effort to increase its footprint in the country and empower the female population.
Officially launching the Bulawayo chapter and the e-business directory, Small and Medium Enterprises minister Sithembiso Nyoni said women make up 52% of the population in Zimbabwe.
Nyoni applauded proponents of Proweb, saying the initiative would play a critical role in empowering women.
She said e-business directory is one of the strategies to realise women empowerment as it would allow easy network and access to information regarding their businesses.
“The e-directory will provide a platform for women from diverse backgrounds to be profiled,” Nyoni said.
“With the advent of technology it is very important for women to make use of technology to market their business,” she added.
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She said the directory would be accessed by different stakeholders for board appointments, vacancies, consultancy exchange programmes, among other things.
Nyoni called on women to be part of organisations that harness their skills, talent and businesses adding that it was from organisations such as Proweb that women could access information empowering them.
She, however, noted that women were facing a plethora of challenges ranging from lack of access to information, capital and market discrimination, among other challenges, adding that it was critical to work on initiatives addressing those problems. “The majority of women remain in less lucrative business ventures,” Nyoni said.
It is therefore apparent that we take a step further to implement policies empowering women,” she added.
Proweb gives loans to women in business as part of the empowerment drive.
