Pretoria – Twenty-eight female entrepreneurs, who play a key role in guaranteeing food security for households and job creation in the North West, will battle it out for the Best Female Entrepreneur Award on Friday.
The 14th installation of the award ceremony will be held at Mmabatho Convention Centre at 6pm. The annual competition is a partnership between the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the North West Department of Agriculture and Rural Development and Total SA.
Its main objective is to recognise, celebrate, honour and reward the continuous contributions made by women in the fight against hunger, poverty and unemployment amongst the rural communities.
Dubbed, Harnessing women’s talent for sustainable food security: A vision beyond 2030, the ceremony will see nominated projects competing and being awarded in the following categories:
- Best Female Worker in the sector
- Best Subsistence producer in the sector
- Top Entrepreneur in the sector: Smallholder
- Top Entrepreneur in the sector: Processing
- Top Entrepreneur in the sector: Commercial
In selecting winners for each category, a panel of adjudicators will assess projects on the basis of their entrepreneurial development qualities, financial management skills, innovation, job creation and the management of resources for current and future generations.
Winners will represent the province at the National Female Entrepreneur Awards ceremony to be held in Gauteng later in the month.
Agriculture and Rural Development MEC Desbo Mohono said increasing the participation of women and empowering them to grow from being subsistence and smallholder producers to commercial entrepreneurs were some of the fundamental pillars of this annual event.
“This programme is in line with the National Development Plan (NDP), which puts emphasis on the need for women to be empowered and be involved in the transformation of the country’s economy,” said Mohono.
The ceremony will form part of the centenary events on the reversal of the 1913 Natives Land Act, and it will coincide with the arrival of the uniquely designed exhibition trucks in Mahikeng at the Mmabatho Convention Centre, which will showcase the negative effects of this Act by bringing history to life.
Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti and North West Premier Thandi Modise are expected to attend the award ceremony. - SAnews.gov.za
