East Africa: EAC Women Empowered to Seize Common Market Benefits

By Deus Ngowi

EAST African Business Council (EABC) has empowered some women in the region to seize benefits of the bloc's common market.

More than 50 women in business have already been empowered to tap into the EAC Common Market of 177 million consumers following the successful East African Women in Business Breakfast Meeting held at Weru Weru Lodge in Kilimanjaro Region over the weekend.

EABC Board Director Ms Mary Ngechu was of the view that women should boldly tap into the opportunities availed by the EAC regional integration by engaging in cross border trade and value addition.

The meeting discussed the theme "Intra-EAC Trade and Investment Opportunities". Ms Ngechu emphasised that access to finance and low level of knowledge on cross border trade regulations and opportunities are among challenges facing businesswomen in the region.

The Covid-19 pandemic has impacted the cash flow of businesswomen at a greater scale compared to businessmen, as most of them own Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and compose 76 per cent of informal cross border traders in the EAC region.

That is due to the measures to curb the outbreak of Covid-19 in some countries of the region such as lockdown, curfews, restrictions on the free movement of cargo and persons. Tanzania was not part of countries that exercised lockdown but took all necessary preventive measures.

"In this new norm women should adopt digital tools and technologies such as e-commerce to upscale their businesses," said Ms Ngechu.

In the meeting, women shared their experiences on realigning their business models to tap into new opportunities such as manufacturing face shields, soap, adopting online and social media stores and digital payments.

With the commencement of trading under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) on 1st of January 2020, East African women should be empowered on the regulations and new market opportunities availed by the continental market of 1.7 billion people.

The women urged the East African Community (EAC) and African Union (AU) to come up with a continental simplified trade regime for the highly exported goods by women from the EAC region to the continent so as to enhance market access.

Complex tax regimes and Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) continue to hinder women to engage proactively in cross-border trade, forcing them to use informal routes.

The women urged EAC Partner State to come up with simplified and gender-sensitive Covid-19 measures; allow free movement of people and open up borders and cross border markets.

That move will boost intra-EAC trade and the resilience of women-owned businesses,With support from TradeMark East Africa (TMEA,) the EABC champions trade and gender issues under its flagship platform, the East African Women in Business Platform which brings together businesswomen from all the EAC partner states with a mission of positioning and catalysing participation of women in the EAC integration process.