What an honour to have been a panellist amongst the top brains across the region—from Academia, Professionals, to Entrepreneurs. Presenters from;

• Angola, Namibia, Mauritius, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia & Zimbabwe

The Southern African Development Community Marketers Association (SADCMA) is the brain child of Angolan who is The Chief Marketing Officer for Angola Special Economic Zone. SADCMA seeks to promote regional integration and unlocking opportunities for SADC states. Amongst the founders is one of Admins—Darlington Letala representing Zimbabwe.

Yesterday’s webinar sought to assess trade disruptions, economic pressures and strategic responses to the recent USA Tarrifs.

Great presentations and contributions from all members of the panellists and interestingly the webinar was oversubscribed thanks to the great work by the media team.

Angolan Entrepreneur Marlene Jose: Founder of Foodcare LDA. We hope to explore Agriculture Opportunities and share notes on the exports of agricultural exports.  Zimbabwean farmers doing extremely well on horticulture exports to Europe and excelling on blueberry exports where we have risen to become the third largest exporter of blue berries. There are a lot of opportunities to explore in this area.

Mauritius Investment Analyst Taroonah Doolub: For all investment interests in Mauritius—we now have a contact who is a call away. She did an excellent presentation on Legal Frameworks to Navigate Tariffs as well as investment opportunities in Mauritius.

Zambian Entrepreneur Arnold Nyendwa: A lot of innovations coming through from Zambian entrepreneurs—excellent presentation from Arnold and there is room for collaboration with African  entrepreneurs.

Of course the continent is loaded with top academics and top economists from the region who provided economic insights and strategic responses included Miyelani Mkhabela (South Africa)—interesting insights on the South African vehicles assembly operations. Another top economist was Egas Daniel from Mozambique sharing Economic Policy Pathways and Regional Integration. Thank you Egas and Miyelani for the well researched and insightful presentations.

Of course Namibia recently elected a female president and the happiness and joy warmth did spread through the webinar with top class moderation from the Namibian Toucy U. Tjijombo—Namibia got talent!

My presentation was on currency volatility and hedging strategies with a bias on small businesses—sharing how resilient Zimbabwean Entrepreneurs were managing and innovating around the challenges. The latest remarks by the Zimbabwe Finance Minister Prof Mthuli Ncube on tariff negotiations. And my views on diaspora remittance investment opportunities and lessons for SADC from Zimbabwean  diaspora remittances. Of course glitches impacted the presentation, but we hope to get this sorted in future.

Its Africa rising through initiatives such as SADCMA as the key takeaway was unity of purpose across SADC and fully exploring opportunities presented by AfCFTA. Just do not miss the next webinar in order to explore opportunities across the region.

The first stage our Madagascar Lima Beans Farming involved backyard farming from December 2023-December 2024. Due to unavailability of the seeds, we distributed at least 3000 free seeds to our Subscribed Members, Mompreneurs, Mutare, Byo, SA and Western Cape Chapters.

Ultimate Goal?

• Develop a seed bank and move onto big spaces.
• Be food secure and,
• Sell the tasty beans and generate profits,
• Use profits to expand the beans project, and

• Use the profits to invest in non beans farming projects.

So our farmers moved to open fields and in my case made use of  my rural area land and how is progress?

December Plants=95% write off due to erratic rains and a stubborn nhuta. Have tried pesticides but the nhuta is getting fatter from the bean seeds.

January Plants: Yes and Yes, finally there is some great progress.

Had underrated trellis support after the earlier disappointment. But looks like we got a lot of work to do. Still a few thousands, but slowly getting there using experience gained from backyard farming.