African Women Agribusiness Network Afrika (AWAN-Afrika) launches a platform set to connect and boost the network of business women in Africa.
The platform which is Africas first online platform tending to bring agripreneurs together has been received by the target users significantly recording over 400 users on the day of its launch.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture Assistant Director Jacinta Ngwiri, it’s the high time women made money through agriculture as the platform helps in taking their farming practices higher being producers to agribusiness.
“This continent has just been exporting and sending out in terms of food produce, cash crops, and so forth. We want now to move out of that and do more in agribusiness, where we can sell out from our countries and the continent more finished products that can fetch more money,” she said.
The platform not only going to organize the farmers but also help in changing their mindsets towards increasing their yields for higher income.
“In general, we have programs reaching women in all levels depending on their capacity, and this is all aimed at improving their untapped potential to turn around agricultural production in this country,” she said.
However, she highlighted the fact that still many women willing to venture in agriculture can’t do so due to the lack of access to funding.
“We are happy that the government has been able to implement the women fund where women and youth can access credit in a cheaper way than getting this money from the bank,” she said.
The program is said to be set in a way that it will be able to reach its target audience, which are the youth and women with ease.
Speaking about the same, Director of African Women Association Network, Beatrice Gakumba said that it is high time Africans started working on bringing changes in a bid to have cross border programs that seek to address free movement tariff barriers.
“Today, we have this opportunity to accelerate manufacturing and intra- African trade of value-added products, moving from commodity-based economies and exports to economic diversification and high-value exports,” said Gakumba, adding that the demand was high.
