The Sunday News
IN a first of its kind, ZimTrade — the national trade development and promotion organisation — recently won the prestigious World Trade Promotion Organisation (WTPO) 2022 Award, in acknowledgment of its contribution to the development and facilitation of Zimbabwe’s exports.
The awards identify and recognise efforts by trade promotion organisations (TPOs) that have successfully contributed to strengthening the competitiveness of exporting enterprises or have made a significant and positive change towards reaching this objective.
World Trade Promotion Organisation
ZimTrade joined 13 other TPOs around the world who were nominated, and these are Austria, Brazil, Canada, Jamaica, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Qatar, the Republic of Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, the United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
The nominees fell under three broad categories, which are Best Use of a Partnership; Best Use of Information Technology; and Best Initiative for Inclusive and Sustainable Trade. For ZimTrade, the Eagles’ Nest Youth Export Incubation Programme, contributed to its winning of the award under the Best Initiative for Inclusive and Sustainable Trade. Other nominees who were competing for the same award won by ZimTrade were TPOs from Sri Lanka, Republic of Korea, Netherlands, and Zambia.
Speaking after receiving the award in Ghana on 17 May, ZimTrade CEO, Allan Majuru said the award is a recognition of the current programme implemented to strengthen export competitiveness and create market linkages for previously marginalised communities.
ZimTrade (CEO) Mr Allan Majuru
“This is an exciting award for us and goes a long way to demonstrate the hard work put by everyone at ZimTrade to ensure that we achieve our goals. In line with the aspirations of United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals, we have had to refocus our approach to ensure that we fully develop capacities for youth-led and women-led enterprises, given the big space they hold in our economy,” he said.
This is the second time ZimTrade was nominated for the WTPO award.
Last year, ZimTrade was nominated under the “Best use of a partnership” category, which recognised the successful use of integrated partnerships and networks to advance export development and impact.
About the Eagles’ Nest programme
The programme was launched in 2020 to inculcate an export culture among youth enterprises in Zimbabwe.
The development of the programme was premised on the understanding that meaningful trade and economic development require specific approaches to include marginalised groups, particularly young people.
This initiative also anchors on the recognition by the National Youth Policy that the participation of young people in economic activities “provides sustenance and sustainable livelihood to the majority of them.”
Eagles Nest programme, now in its second year, bridges the knowledge gap by bringing together different stakeholders to support and nurture youth led businesses across Zimbabwe into viable export ready companies.
The programme uses a pool of mentors, who are successful local business owners to provide practical solutions that will aid in navigating some of the difficult business terrain.
ZimTrade’s partners such as Netherlands — based PUM and SES of Germany, which are retired expert organisations, also offer support to selected organisations, by providing expert advice to businesses that will make youth-owned businesses competitive.
Such expert advice includes appropriate international certification, ways to improve their product from design stage to packaging stage, and on needs basis, different upgraded machinery to ensure their product meets international standards.
A quick scan of youth-owned businesses reveals that some of them are not formally registered, regardless of the many years they have been operating.
Working with some key national institutions therefore eases the registration process and ensure that more youth-led businesses are formalised.
SME
After formalising, youth-owned businesses are expected to have access to bigger markets and financing, which remains a major challenge for small businesses.
Other stakeholders who are part of the Eagle’s Nest Programme are local banks and financing institutions, who avail funding facilities tailored for youth-led SMEs.
One critical component of the Eagle’s Nest Programme is support to youth-owned business to reach export market, by promoting their products and services in foreign countries.
About the WTPO awards
Since 2004, the WTPO Awards have been recognising outstanding TPO practices, promoting success, innovation, and the sharing of excellence.
The 2022 WTPO Awards focused on excellence in export development initiatives.
Youth led businesses
The awards are open to national trade promotion organisations across the world, mandated by their government to promote the country’s national export strategy.
The nominees in all categories were identified for a specific export development initiative that illustrated how an individual or group of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) were assisted in strengthening their competitiveness and, as a result, entered or re-entered the global market as strong competitors.
The adjudication team for the awards is composed of senior representative from the TPOs that won at the previous WTPO Awards, and the past and current host organisation of the WTPO conference.
