The annual Africa Industrialization Week is currently underway in Niamey Niger. In line with the African Union‘s mission to empower its women and youths as key drivers for Africa’s development, the African Union Development Agency-NEPAD organized a series of week-long events and training to equip African women SME owners from different parts of the continent with skills and knowledge to enable them to accelerate Africa’s industrialization and tap into the opportunities the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) presents.
On Tuesday, November 22, AUDA-NEPAD kicked off its session on ‘Equipping African Women Entrepreneurs to make it in Africa’.
Speaking during the opening of the two-day session, the AUDA-NEPAD’s CEO Nardos Bekele-Thomas commended the women for their courage and resilience to venture into the male dominated world of entrepreneurship.
“I am impressed by your courage and the strength with which you have chosen to believe in yourself, and to invest in yourself. At each stage of your life, as the wonderful female music groups sang yesterday, you have experienced happy or painful moments, which have marked you, strengthened you, and allowed you to be women who choose the difficult path, the one of entrepreneurship.”
“I know what it means to be a woman in an unequal world, a world where men dominate, a world where one must constantly apologize for being a woman, apologize for having ambition, apologize for wanting to actively participate in the construction of a better world. And I know how effective mentoring, coaching and training can be in transforming a woman’s life in a world designed for and by men.” She added.
During the two day session the women processors and SME owners from Niger and other African countries were trained by experts on branding, packaging, digital skills, financial literacy among others.
Organized by the African Union, the 2022 Africa Industrialization Week is taking place in Niamey Niger where the African Union Summit on Industrialization and Economic Diversification will take place under the theme “Industrialising Africa: Renewed commitment towards an Inclusive and Sustainable Industrialization and Economic Diversification.
Held from November 20-25th, the event is being commemorated with a host of week-long activities, to reflect and accelerate actions towards Africa’s structural transformation, as an enabler to meet the objectives of Agenda 2063, and SDGs, 2030.
