From 30 October to 1st November 2024, the Governor’s Office conference room was the venue for the capacity-building session for women entrepreneurs as part of the “Let’s Talk Female Entrepreneurship” initiative.
This session, organised as part of the implementation of activities under Programme 140 entitled “Women’s Economic Empowerment”, was chaired by the Minister of Women’s Empowerment and the Family, who was accompanied by the Governor of the Littoral Region. The aim was to build the capacity of 100 women entrepreneurs on relevant themes related to women’s entrepreneurial leadership, such as (Mind Education, the opportunities of the AfCFTA, procedures to legalise businesses, procedures to obtain land certificates, packaging); to facilitate the sharing of experiences and discussions on difficulties encountered by women entrepreneurs in the performance of their duties; to create a framework for dialogue, networking and thinking for the promotion of women’s entrepreneurship; and to promote a conducive framework for Import-Substitution.
Participants were treated to presentations on Mind Education, whose aim is to deconstruct mentalities to build a spirit of champions; procedures to legalise businesses and financial education; opportunities of the AfCFTA; presentation of results of the study on key sectors of the national economy; procedures to obtain a land certificate, opportunities offered by the government and testimonies as well as sharing of experiences by women entrepreneurs. The various presentations revealed the attitudes and values that women need to develop in order to forge a mindset and adopt an entrepreneurial culture. They need to be daring, have a clear vision, never give up, learn from their failures, be very careful when working with family members, develop networking and strategies for balancing family and entrepreneurial life. They also made their peers aware of the need to be organised in order to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the AfCFTA.
Due to the density and complexity of topics, a great amount of time was devoted to discussions, which were very constructive and fruitful, helping to clarify many of the concerns expressed by participants. A number of challenges emerged from these discussions, namely: individualism and poor networking among women entrepreneurs, poor financial planning, poor management skills, the use of non-standard packaging, poor quality packaging, and lack of awareness among most women entrepreneurs of the opportunities offered by the AfCFTA.
At the end of this information-intensive session, participants were encouraged to take ownership of all the lessons they had learned in order to enhance their skills and limit their doubts, so as to become true champions when it comes to entrepreneurship and better take advantage of the opportunities offered by the AfCFTA.