In a bid to enhance its support for women entrepreneurship and women’s economic empowerment, the digital platform for women in business – 50 Million African Women Speak – has introduced a new section which provides a broad range of learning resources on various aspects of business.

The resources are available via the landing page of the platform (www.womenconnect.org) and through the 50MAWSP app.

They were generated through the boot camp for African women entrepreneurs which the 50MAWSP implementing RECs, namely COMESA, East African Community (EAC) and the Economic Community of West African States jointly organized with the African Development Bank (AfDB) between March and July this year.

Approximately 1,000 women entrepreneurs from more than 25 African countries signed up for the business training boot camp, which was conducted online.

The newly added content is designed to be relevant to users irrespective of the country or region they come from and covers areas which include: starting a business, structuring the operations of your business, developing go to market strategies, e-commerce and building an effective online presence, structuring a scalable business and financial structuring and funding options for entrepreneurs.

COMESA’s Director for Gender and Social Affairs Mrs Beatrice Simwapenga Hamusonde said the new addition to the platform would facilitate self-learning for women in business and enhance their capacity in key areas such as marketing their businesses online, managing finances, identifying opportunities for funding and scaling their enterprises.

“The resources which the platform is making available were generated following a survey where women entrepreneurs who use the platform indicated which areas they needed their capacity to be enhanced, so we are confident that they will facilitate them to do business better, while also going a long way in enriching our platform,” Mrs Hamusonde remarked.

“We are grateful to our implementing partners, EAC and ECOWAS, as well as the AfDB and 50MAWSP national focal points who all played a critical role in ensuring that the boot camp for women entrepreneurs took place and through it a wealth of knowledge was generated for the benefit of women who may not have been able to participate in the live training sessions,” she added.

The learning resources are available in text and video formats.