Maersk to connect 3m female entrepreneurs to markets

The Head of Marketing and Business Development, Africa Region of Maersk, Anita De Werd, has promised to ensure that three million female entrepreneurs access the benefits of trade in Nigeria before the end of 2021.

Werd who described Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) as the engine of innovation and job creation, said that if the company can empower small businesses in trade, it believe that it can help make economies more inclusive.

Speaking as a panelist during the opening session of the fifth edition of the Tony Elumelu Foundation Forum held in Abuja recently, Ms. De Werd said 95% of all companies in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) economies are SMEs and they account for two-thirds of formal sector jobs, despite having much less access to the benefits of trade.

De Werd emphasized that the A.P. Moller-Maersk Group focuses on working through partnerships to empower entrepreneurs and SMEs through various partners such as the SheTrades initiative of the International Trade Centre (ITC).

She said, “The purpose of SheTrades is to enable female entrepreneurs to access the benefits of trade, aiming to connect three million female entrepreneurs to markets by 2021. This encourages inclusion as well as benefitting business, as WEF research shows that closing the global economic gender gap could add 26% to the annual global GDP by 2025.

“In 2014, Maersk followed a shipment of avocadoes from Kenya to the Netherlands. We found that this single shipment involved almost 30 different people or organisations and that it generated more than 200 different communication interactions resulting in unnecessary time and costs. This is just one shipment. We then asked ourselves how this cost and complexity impacts the entire trade picture.”

Ms. De Werd also advocated open trade as an enabler of economic prosperity and growth, stating that “A.P. Moller-Maersk wants to be a cornerstone of an inclusive and sustainable global trading system that can help eradicate poverty and deliver decent work for all, which are two of the Sustainable Development Goals agreed by the United Nations in 2015.”