100 women and youth in Mauritius get sensitized about 50MAWSP

The COMESA Secretariat and the National Women Entrepreneur Council of Mauritius on 28 November 2023 held a Multistakeholder Capacity Building Dialogue to sensitize women and youth in business about COMESA tools and initiatives which are available for facilitating trade. The ultimate aim of the dialogues is to equip women and youth with the necessary tools to enhance their participation in regional trade.

Opening the event, the Mauritian Minister for Gender Equality and Family Welfare Honorable Kalpana Devi Koonjoo-Shah lauded COMESA for organizing the multistakeholder dialogue and observed that such forums are important for knowledge and skills sharing. 

“Engagement with key stakeholders are indispensable components of our agenda. It is heartening to see the emphasis placed on gender,” Mrs. Koonjoo-Shah said.

The minister thanked the European Union for its “invaluable” support through the Institutional Capacity Building Programme under which the dialogues are organized. 

She commended the initiatives to uplift women and youth in particular, saying, “We are embarking on a transformative journey with the women in business digital platform,” and added that with COMESA’s partnership, “We are fleshing out the contours of our women empowerment.”

The Director for Gender and Social Affairs, Mrs. Beatrice Hamusonde led the COMESA delegation and walked participants through COMESA’s objectives as well as its various initiatives which citizens of the Member States can benefit from.

The dialogue participants were also taken through the COMESA gender frameworks as well as the women in business digital platform, before an interactive session where questions about COMESA were tackled. More than 110 participants drawn from public and private sector institutions attended the multistakeholder capacity building dialogue. Of these, 100 were women and youth in business. The event in Mauritius was the first of several dialogues planned in various Member States.