Help for Women to Start Own Businesses

Wassa will enhance women's capacity to participate in business and trade through the facilitation of national and regional joint ventures. Women who fail to identify markets for their crops will be networked with other markets from the region through membership of Wassa.

Wassa regional president Malawian Grace Mhamgo said: "We want to economically empower women in business especially agrobusiness. We want to claim market shares and emancipate women in business."

Wassa is a grouping of women entrepreneurs from sub-Sahara African countries focusing on creating a strong and reliable network of women in agribusiness.

"We as Wassa will help the women identify the markets and linking them to the market," Mhamgo said.

Zimbabwe registered under Wassa this year in June.

The non-profit organisation assists in bringing growth to business owned by women as they graduate from micro and medium-scale levels to large-scale enterprises."There is no reason for us as Zimbabwe to grow crops that we can't sell just because we can't identify the market.

"Let us as women take advantage of this opportunity and economically empower ourselves and our country," said Theresa Mazoya, the president of the Zimbabwe chapter of Wassa.

The Zimbabwean agricultural sector is recovering from a decade of decline following the fast-track land reform programme.

A number of new farmers who benefited from the programme lack both the knowledge and capital to undertake meaningful agriculture. This has resulted in the country relying on imports when it used to be the breadbasket of the region at independence.

Mazoya said there should be an increase in women's participation in the agribusiness sector.

Wassa was officially registered in Mozambique and is operational in eight countries including Angola, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia.