In addition, users will be able to compare prices based on factors like vehicle type, departure point, and time, as well as access specialized features offered by transportation providers, such as seat selection and preferred pick-up location option, all at their convenience.
At the unveiling, Chinyere Don-Okhuofu, MD of Interswitch Industry Ecosystems Division, said that the company’s continuous commitment to provide its clients easy access to lifestyle and payment services is demonstrated by the Quickteller Transport Service.
At the second series of the African Women Trade Conference 2022, which was held with the theme “Positioning African women for the next big opportunity in the regional and global marketplace,” the Minister of State for Industry, Trade and Investment, Maryam Yalwaji Katagum, made this statement in her capacity as Director of the Commodity and Export Department, Suleiman A. Audu.
She claims that the following factors need to be taken into account in order to put women in a position where they may take advantage of the African Continental Free Trade Area
“Banks should set up gender desks with a view to going the extra mile in identifying and prioritizing targets of potential women borrowers as a platform for ascertaining and providing financial empowerment from African Development Bank to support women-led Farmers Based Associations and MSMEs to promote agriculture in certain African countries. Greater efforts need to be made to provide women with access to technical education and on-the-job training. Targeted entrepreneurship training can help women entrepreneurs grasp the opportunities that open markets create and calibrate their businesses toward those opportunities through creativity and innovation.”
In order to pioneer inclusive scientific advances and influence corporate trends, more women should be encouraged to pursue technical careers in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) domains, according to Katagum.
She believed that it was essential for women to be able to lead inclusive scientific advances and influence commercial trends.
If the African Continental Free Trade Area is to achieve its intended aim, she urged unity and cooperation among all Africans, regardless of background, to be gender sensitive in its implementation.
The Minister remarked:
With the launch of trading under the ACFTA in January 2021, the expectations are high as relates to the expanded business prospects for women-led businesses, which will unlock the potential for African women to grow their businesses from micro to macro enterprises.
“The agreement establishing the ACFTA recognizes the need to build and improve the export capacity of both formal and informal service suppliers, with particular attention to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises in which women and youth actively participate. Through the ACFTA, informal and micro and small enterprises will be integrated into the continental markets breaking the barriers these businesses constantly encounter as they try to penetrate more advanced regional and overseas markets. Women, estimated to account for 70 per cent of informal cross-border trade in Africa, will be well positioned to tap into regional export destinations and use regional markets as stepping stones for expanding into overseas markets. By reducing tariffs and with simplified trading regimes for small traders, ACFTA makes it more affordable for informal traders to operate through formal channels which offer more protection by addressing the vulnerabilities of women in cross-border trade.”
Cross-border towns are being abandoned and lack infrastructure, according to Flora Agbiji Ndifon, a panelist at the event and expert in cross-border trade.
“The only things that you will see in any border communities are custom officers and other related agencies,” she said.
Ndifon asked the government to take the growth of border communities seriously.
