Africa-Press – Botswana. The limited time remaining for Botswana to realise Vision 2036 should motivate everyone to accelerate efforts to achieve gender equality and empower women and girls.
First Lady Neo Masisi made the call during the launch of Phase 3 of the Accelerated Women Owned Micro Enterprises (AWOME) in Tlokweng on Friday.
The AWOME is a partnership between government, De Beers Group and the United Nations meant to empower women entrepreneurs in Southern Africa.
It was designed to target women entrepreneurs in the informal sector who had been adversely affected by the economic effects of COVID-19 as well as the rising unemployment and inequality in the region.
Officially launching the programme, Ms Masisi noted that women had been part of development of economies through their participation in the informal sector.
She said AWOME had proved to be a game changer in enhancing women’s active participation and expressed gratitude for the partnership between government, UN Women and De Beers group of companies.
She also called on the partners to remember to include men and boys as strategic partners and champions of change that was desired by AWOME recipients.
Ms Masisi said by investing in women across Botswana, South Africa and Namibia, the AWOME initiative was realising the dreams, boosting confidence and restoring hope to the power of women.
She said it pleased her that the programme addressed Sustainable Development Goals 1 and 5, adding that overtime trade would be one of the key pillars that sustain economies.
For his part, Minister of Youth, Gender, Sport and Culture, Mr Tumiso Rakgare said it was inevitable that women were a critical part of the sustainable development of any economy.
He said the AWOME launch was an important course of ensuring that women were economically empowered and had access to and control over financial resources.
Minister Rakgare said when women had economic power they were able to independently run their lives on matters such as viable investment, safe sex and birth control as well as freeing themselves from economic dependence and gender-based violence from their male partners.
He said Southern Africa recognised gender equality and women’s empowerment as critical to societal harmony and sustainable development.
He said the region, through commitments such as the Beijing Declaration and Platform for action, the SDGs, the African Union Agenda and the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development continued to nurture an environment conducive for the full participation of both women and men in the socio-economic, political and cultural sphere.
He said out of 146 countries assessed, Botswana and Namibia ranked ninth and 19th respectively in women’s economic participation and opportunity.
United Nations women representative – South Africa Multi Country office – Ms Aletta Miller said she was proud of the programme as it was a practical example of women’s empowerment for gender equality.
She said giving women micro entrepreneurs the tools to run successful and sustainable businesses enabled them to secure a livelihood.
She said the UN’s gender snapshot report revealed that at the current rate over 340 million women and girls would still live in extreme poverty by 2030.
Ms Miller said an additional US$360 billion per year was needed to achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment across key global goals.
She added that the current government expenditure left a significant shortfall.
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