CEDIS Program
30 000 marginalised women and young females in the urban and surrounding rural areas of Bulawayo, Mutare and potentially Harare will benefit from Catalysing Economic Development through the Informal Sector (CEDIS) program.
This was revealed during its launch being implemented by Mercy Corps where Women affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Minister Sithembiso Nyoni was the guest of honour on 6 April, 2023 at Cresta Churchill Hotel
CEDIS is a market systems development program that aims to facilitate growth and development in the informal sector to improve the wellbeing of 70 percent women and young females between 18 to 35 years and the Zimbabwe economy.
CEDIS Facilitated Growth
CEDIS Team leader, Joel Kidega said that the CEDIS program will use a facilitative approach to strengthen the roles of women and female-led enterprises across the selected sectors by addressing underlying cross-cutting market constraints.
“These constraints include limited access to finance, access to equipment and machinery, limited access to profitable markets and market services, and rules and norms that limit participation of women and young females in the informal sector,” said Kidega.
Kidega also said that the CEDIS program will encourage the effective use of renewable energy during the pilot phase and assist transformation in the waste management, agro-processing, and small-scale manufacturing sectors.
CEDIS conducted target group study, market systems assessments, gender/barrier analysis, and risk analysis to create inclusive interventions. The analysis enabled them to group beneficiaries under following categories.
CEDIS Beneficiary Groups
Aspirators group is the first category. It has easy access to resources like highway systems and land. They hope to expand their small firms, and they will have more diversified sources of income. However, their access to lucrative markets is constrained. Small- and medium-sized food stores, medium-scale horticultural producers, and small- and medium-sized agro-processors all fall under this category.
The second category is the hustler-preneurs. Hustler-preneurs are very mobile, have access to financing (mainly informal), and are consequently quite opportunistic. They have aspirations of expansion and are technologically literate. This group consists of trash aggregators, major traders, and middlemen.
The third category is the anchors. These are less mobile, have less access to cash, and have more dependents who require limited childcare. For this population, access to markets and services like daycare is the biggest barrier. Fruit and vegetable vendors, farm laborers, and people working in small-scale agriculture production make up this category.
The Rovers is the last category. They live primarily in cities, are quite mobile, have access to market data, and have some kind of access to childcare facilities. Their primary obstacle is getting access to money. People in this group include waste pickers, employees of small-scale businesses, solar product agents and janitors.
According to Kidega CEDIS program aims to create inclusive change in labour-intensive sectors, such as waste management, agro-processing, and small-scale manufacturing.
The Approach
Furthermore, the CEDIS program uses the Market Systems Development (MSD) approach to improve socioeconomic wellbeing by increasing access to goods and services and increasing the benefits of markets. The CEDIS program aims to improve market functions and develop inclusive business models to benefit large numbers of women and create sustainable impact.
Commenting on the CEDIS program during the launch, Minister of Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development, Sithembiso Nyoni applauded Mercy Corps and the Embassy of Sweden for the partnership for recognising informal sector.
Additionally, it was attested by Nyoni to, “Let me appreciate Mercy Corps for this program and the Embassy of Sweden for their partnership and also the communities and Ministry for this collaboration”.
Moreover, Nyoni conveyed that, “This program is really important and it is resonating very well with vision 2030 which says Zimbabwe must be a middle income nation.”
Lastly, Nyoni also encouraged Mercy Corps to work hand in hand with the Ministry and team Europe so as to expand the partnership
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