The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Institute (SMEDI) organized a three days training in Financial Literacy at its Enterprise Development Centre at Mponela in Dowa District which was attended by 66 Chief Executive Officers and representatives of different MSMEs across Malawi. The firms are drawn from Agribusiness ventures in primary commercial farming, processors, Aggregators as well as Agro-dealers.
The training program, which was implemented in collaboration with HarvestPlus, focused on Business Planning to help participants develop a road map for their businesses, Book Keeping to help participants track the performance of the business and use the same in planning for the future and producing financial statements as well as Financial Literacy which took them through how they can manage finances, loans, Savings and also planning for investments.
Speaking during the closing event, Martha Nyama who represented the Participants, asked SMEDI and HarvestPlus to reach out to more Malawians with such type of trainings as it gave them a platform to understand how to improve their businesses and take charge of their future direction. In his remarks, Thomas Bariti who represented HarvestPlus assured the participants of their organizations commitment to scale up this intervention.
In his remarks, The Chief Executive Officer for SMEDI Mr. Rodrick Chattaika encouraged the MSMEs to aggressively pursue business opportunities, to network for sharing business information and expertise for the benefit of more Malawian MSMEs. He also advised the MSMEs to take their rightful space in government initiatives like the MSME participation order, MSME financing opportunities through participating financial institutions under FINES project among others.
SMEDI is a parastatal organization under the Ministry of Trade and Industry responsible for providing business Information and Training services to small scale business operators in Malawi. The programs are for both start-ups and growth stage businesses. These interventions are also delivered in partnership with other institutions that have an interest to promote the development of MSMEs. HarvestPlus, an International NGO that promotes engagement and empowerment of farming households through capacity building and linkages to markets and other support services.
Malawi has placed the capacity development of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) as a priority area to drive the country towards achievement of Malawi 2063 Vision. These MSMEs are the key to changing Malawi’s landscape to an inclusively wealthy and self-reliant nation by the year 2063.
