TANZANIA – Tanzania’s Minister of State (Union and Environment) in the Vice President’s Office, Selemani Jafo, has extolled women entrepreneurs for the refinement of their products which enabled them to meet national and international standards.

He made the remarks in Dar es Salaam as he was cutting the ribbon at the second women’s exhibitions which are organized by the Tanzania Women Chamber of Commerce (TWCC), going on at Mnazi Mmoja funded by GIZ.

The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH, often shortened to simply GIZ, is the main German development agency headquartered in Bonn and Eschborn that provides services in the field of international development cooperation and international education work.

Germany has been engaged in international cooperation with Tanzania since 1975. It opened an office in Dar es Salaam in 1982. They work with local project partners and, at the regional level, with the East African Community (EAC), which is based in Arusha.

It is the organization’s self-declared goal to deliver effective solutions that offer people better prospects and sustainably improve their living conditions.

He said he visited several pavilions and witnessed different products produced by women which is in good standard something he appreciated and urged them to continue improving their products every time.

“Am happy to see many of your products are certified by the Tanzania Bureau of Standards (TBS) and has a barcode which means they qualify to be sold in big supermarkets inside and outside the country,” he said.

Minister Jafo hailed the Tanzania Bureau of Standards (TBS) for supporting women in their quest to produce high quality goods.

However, he directed the TBS to continue aiding women groups in acquiring the quality mark of standards and also addressing various challenges that hamper them from improving the quality and quantity of goods.

Tanzania Women chamber of Commerce

Jafo said women, through their umbrella TWCC, have been courageous to establish business groups that produce different products and contribute immensely to the growth of the country’s economy through taxes.

Tanzania Women chamber of Commerce (TWCC) was established in 2005 by groups of Women with the aim of creating a platform to raise the voices for women entrepreneurs.

To date, it has managed to achieve its goal by being an essential vessel for influence, opportunity, innovation, networking and capacity building.

The Chairperson of TWCC, Mercy Sila, reaffirmed this saying the chamber has enabled many women businesses to grow from the very humble beginning because they facilitate them when opportunities arise.

The Minister noted that despite the Covid-19 pandemic, Tanzania’s economy continued to be stable and women contributed a lot to job creation through the businesses they introduce.

“When I was visiting pavilions some of you told me that you sell your products outside the country. That encouraged me a lot I commend you for the stage you have reached but don’t relax you must continue improving your product,” he said.

TBS participated in the women entrepreneurs exhibitions to educate participants on how to acquire quality mark of standards and register food products.

Speaking earlier, the TBS Quality Control Officer, Amiti Msanjila said the standards watchdog has been providing for free the quality mark of standards to entrepreneurs after submitting an introduction letter from the Small Industries Development Organisation (SIDO).

“SIDO writes a letter to TBS to introduce an entrepreneur and after that the standard watchdog issues the quality mark of standard,” she explained.

The quality mark of standards is fundamental in creating confidence in consumers that the products they want to buy is safe and have met the required standards.

The women’s exhibition attracted 400 participants from different parts of the country and this has been an important platform for providing education geared at improving the quality of their goods, said the TBS Public Communications Manager, Gladness Kaseka.

Liked this article? Subscribe to Food Safety Africa News, our regular email newsletters with the latest news insights from Africa and the World’s food safety, quality and compliance. SUBSCRIBE HERE