Aston Lukoye
International Women’s Day highlights the private sector’s critical role in promoting women’s economic inclusion in Africa.
With a rapidly changing world and limited prospects, Coca-Cola Beverages Africa (CCBA) seeks to leverage industry leadership to assist solve the existing situation and generate a bigger shared opportunity for the business and the communities we serve across the value chain.
“We understand that our business can only thrive when the communities we serve thrive too. This is why we have made economic inclusion of women one of the pillars of our sustainability strategy,” says James Bowmaker, Managing Director at CCBA in Kenya.
Across our value chain, we are working to improve skills and business knowledge for women, which in turn can help give them access to more opportunities.
For example, in Tanzania, we have an economic inclusion program called Mwanamke Shujaa (“A Brave Woman”), which provides training and mentorship to women food vendors, as well as tools of the trade to enable them to grow their businesses. The training covered key areas like bookkeeping, customer care, stress management, and capital growth.
In Ethiopia, female engineering students have joined our “Women in Engineering” trainee program which will give them development opportunities and exposure to the company’s world-class operations, setting them up for future employment.
CCBA has also entered into partnerships in Ghana with Girls in Science and Technology (GIST, CCBA subsidiary Voltic aims to reach women at different levels of education, providing them with the mentorship and coaching they need for a successful and impactful Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) career.
In South Africa, CCBA has also established a bursary fund at the University of Pretoria to support female students from previously disadvantaged backgrounds in their final year of engineering studies.
In Mozambique, a group of women plastic waste collectors completed a 12-week training course in an economic inclusion program supported by CCBA. These women have since educated their communities about the positive effects of recycling.
“We will continue to focus on creating a better-shared future, to grow and sustain small businesses and enhance livelihoods, resulting in increased economic value and business capability for women, communities, and our business system, says Bowmaker.
“We believe this holistic approach, within and outside our organization, drawing on the ability of everyone to inspire inclusion, is a powerful formula for change.”
