Chisamba, Zambia, May 10, 2019: National content developers from 10 COMESA Member States this week trained on the use of the 50 Million African Women Speak platform in Chisamba, Zambia.

The 8-10 May training workshop was designed to introduce the 50 Million African Women Speak Project and platform to the national content developers and give them a comprehensive understanding of its operations, goals and objectives.

In addition, the workshop sought to explain the features of the 50MAWS platform and train the national content developers on how to use the platform as the primary content managers, guide them on content needs and share content generation and publishing guidelines.

Speaking at the official opening of the workshop, COMESA Assistant Secretary General, Programmes, Amb. Kipyego Cheluget said existing and potential women entrepreneurs continue to face gender-specific barriers such as limited access to information and networking opportunities, lower levels of education and business training, which the platform would help to address.

He challenged the content developers drawn from Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Malawi, Seychelles, Sudan, Zimbabwe and Zambia to ensure they create useful and up to date content if the platform is to be a success.

“You stand as the vanguards of one of the most critical interventions devised in the last two decades for the empowerment of the African woman,” Amb. Cheluget said. “The success of this platform, however, is heavily tied to the quality of the content it will provide.”

A total of 17 national content developers will support the project at the COMESA Member State level by generating relevant content to meet the information needs of women entrepreneurs.

The 50 MAWS platform is a digital networking initiative which covers 38 countries from three regional economic communities namely; COMESA, East African Community (EAC) and the Economic Community for West African States (ECOWAS).