By KWANELE DHLADHLA | 2020-08-09

Eswatini is the first country preparing to roll a digital Post-COVID Economic Recovery Assessment Tool, called Afrisnap.

The date when the Post-COVID-19 Economic Recovery tool which will be made available to all African countries will be announced by government soon.

The African Electronic Trade Group (AeTrade) Group Director, Treasure Maphanga, explained that this move was directly inspired by the challenges faced by businesses to get factual and up to date information during the pandemic.

She said it would also support government’s efforts to receive feedback from citizens.

“It is a corporate social responsibility action by the AeTrade Group to make this e-Government tool available for the country and to promote e-Governance and e-Government solutions to create an enabling environment for doing business,” said Maphanga.

She said the tool was a social media platform that would change the way citizens and government communicate with each other in real time. She described it as a practical need during COVID-19 to reduce the mobility of citizens who need to access government services as cheaply as possible.

The director said the main idea was to provide information to businesses and citizens on their computers or smart phones that enables them to ask questions, respond to questions and to participate in groups which they may choose – it operates like a social media platform that was linked to other existing platforms.

Maphanga mentioned that the networking function would enable the private sector to come up with its own solutions without relying always on government.

She disclosed that the AeTrade Group designed the tool when COVID-19 threatened to paralyse the business sector across Africa.

The AeTrade Group held a workshop for SMEs on Tuesday where it unveiled products and services that it would bring to the continent, starting with the Kingdom of Eswatini.

AeTrade Group is a social enterprise that operates public-private partnerships with governments across the African continent.

In October last year, at the signing of the host agreement between government and the AeTrade Group, they pledged to work hand in hand with the Government of Eswatini to host the regional headquarters for Southern Africa.

This meant that the Kingdom of Eswatini would be the first in line to benefit from the tools and innovations that would be unveiled in all African countries including thousands of jobs employing mainly youth and women in the Kingdom of Eswatini.

The first 52 jobs were posted in the AeTrade Group website (www.aetradegroup.com).

Recruitment will be done in phases until the organisation gets fully established.

The first of these tools found at SOKOKUU.africa, which means common market, central market, unity in Kiswahili, was a continental trading platform for all businesses, from micro, small, medium and large launched in July 2020 at the African Union.

Materials

It was estimated in a recent study by the African Union Development Agency that the continent has approximately 95 million MSMEs, whereas we have approximately 68 000 MSMEs in the Kingdom of Eswatini.

The platform includes digital learning materials for SMEs which would be accessible for free for the first year in the Kingdom of Eswatini.

“We believe this is a significant contribution to the Kingdom because the registration fee for MSMEs is on average USD100 per year.

This is our way to boost the Kingdom’s efforts towards Post-COVID-19 Economic recovery under the leadership of Prime Minister Ambrose Mandvulo Dlamini,” said Maphanga.

All MSMEs will be able to register for free for one year and will trade on the platform which will provide payment and logistics services at a reasonable cost.

Maphanga encouraged all MSMEs to take advantage of the world class learning material called “Changing the Mindset” once they had registered that would help traders prepare for digital trading in a competitive domestic and international market.

Sponsor

In July, the AeTrade Group also launched the 2020 Global Competition for Youth Start Ups and they plan to sponsor 150 Youth enterprises to attend the Second Intra-African Trade Fair in Kigali, Rwanda on September 6-12, 2021.

The competition registration will be open from September 2020 onwards and all Emaswati were encouraged to apply.

There will be a one week programme of business networking, conference discussions, and also meetings with venture capitalists from around the world.

The AeTrade Group wishes to see representatives on merit from all 55 countries on the continent.

“We are providing many incentives for enterprises in the informal sector to become formal.

“ In order to fully realise the grassroots transformation we want, it will require us to bring to market additional innovations such as a solar powered laptop which is affordable that will enable citizens of all ages, to learn, trade and communicate with each other in places where there is no electricity or internet services. We are working day and night to advance this project which has become a necessity due to the reality of the Post-COVID-19 environment and beyond,” added Maphanga.

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