Old Mutual Zimbabwe, in collaboration with New Faces, New Voices, hosted its third Financial Inclusion Roundtable Breakfast meeting in Harare today, where the importance of empowering women through financial education took center stage.
The event, attended by key figures such as Rachel Mushosho, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’s deputy director of bank supervision, highlighted efforts to boost financial inclusion and uplift women-led businesses.
In an interview, Lilian Mbayiwa, Old Mutual’s Group Marketing, Public Affairs and Sustainability Executive outlined the organization’s focus on empowering women through targeted financial programs.
“New Faces, New Voices, three years ago, and in fact, what you see today is the third of the series of events that we hold with them. But basically, our partnership is really meant to drive some programs to women that will help empower them. And one of the areas that we really focus on in empowering women is financial education,” Mbayiwa said
She highlighted Old Mutual’s flagship initiative, “On the Money,” which has played a crucial role in providing financial education to communities, with a special emphasis on women.
“We have a program that’s called On the Money that we give out to women and other groups in the community. But mainly focusing on women because we believe that women have potential to be very good business people,” she said.
Mbayiwa pointed to the significant role women play in Zimbabwe’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) sector, where their success rates outpace men’s.
“When you look at the stats on SMEs and success, you’ll find that women contribute quite significantly compared to men in terms of success in that sector. We really are here to enable and empower women,” she added.
The impact of these efforts has been felt across the country, with Mbayiwa noting that the scale of the program has grown considerably.
“It has had huge impact. Impact that you see in terms of the scale, you know, this year’s event is much, much bigger than before and also impact in terms of reaching different levels of seniority or experience within women,” Mbayiwa said.
She highlighted the importance of fostering an inclusive environment where women at various stages of their careers can learn from each other.
“You’re seeing younger women participating in the event, because what you want to do is you don’t want just senior experienced women to get together and discuss, but you also want to mentor women who are still young and who have a lot to learn from those who are experienced,” she said.
Mbayiwa underscored Old Mutual’s vision to expand its financial education programs nationwide, ensuring that more women can benefit.
“If you look at the program that we run On the Money, we run that program in all corners of the country. And through this partnership as well, we have also given the program in the Eastern Highlands and other corners of the world. So definitely we would want to, you know, reach everybody,” she said.
