The future is an open  page – Minister Nyoni Minister Nyoni
Minister Nyoni (holding a baby) and her husband (right) pose for a photo with (from left) Sandra Ndebele, Minister Nyoni’s niece Patience and her Nigerian husband

Minister Nyoni (holding a baby) and her husband (right) pose for a photo with (from left) Sandra Ndebele, Minister Nyoni’s niece Patience and her Nigerian husband

Ruth Butaumocho Gender Profile
“Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul. You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt, as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear and as young as your hope.”

The above quote from Douglas MacArthur, an American army general, resonates well with Cde Sithembiso GG Nyoni’s assertion that age should not determine one’s scale of achievement, and neither should it cloud one’s dreams.

“Life is not about age, but it is about opportunities, vision and a purpose to achieve one’s aspirations and goals,” Cde Nyoni recently revealed.

Cde Nyoni is the Minister of Small and Medium Enterprises and Cooperative Development. She has held several ministerial positions in Government since 1996, and has served diligently in various capacities.

Of the two decades she has held various ministerial positions, Cde Nyoni has spent 14 years as Minister of Small and Medium Enterprise Development, a constituency she holds dearly to her heart.

She was the first Minister of SMES and Cooperative Development and grew the ministry from nowhere to where it is today.

It is touted as the strongest economic pillar in the country with 3,8 million SMES owned by 2,8 million entrepreneurs, creating about 5,8 million jobs in the process.

For someone who never dreamt of pursuing a particular course of life, but just wanted to be an influential person in whatever sphere, Cde Nyoni’s self-prophecy was fulfilled.

And she believes a lot is still in the offing.

While several people of her age and even younger ones have given up on life and have stopped pursuing their aspirations and dreams, Minister Nyoni has taken several steps to fulfil her aspirations, while giving due attention to her ministerial roles.

She is studying for a doctorate with the Zimbabwe Open University, focusing on sustainable models of development.

“I want to leave a legacy through what I am doing, and that alone demands that I need to upgrade myself, so that I can serve and execute diligently in whatever task I am given,” she said.

Like a true cadre assigned to her mission, Minister Nyoni has been working hard to create opportunities and easing the way of business for the SMES, becoming a beacon of hope to millions of people across Zimbabwe who are in the informal sector and engaged in various projects.

“We have been and continue to look at the small to medium enterprises as a vehicle for ending poverty in Zimbabwe and elsewhere,” she said.

“Working with SMES is a lot of hard work that needs continuous supervision to ensure their sustainability.

“Some SMEs will start and take off, some will die and resurrect, but some will start and just die. Be it as it may, small to medium enterprises have become pivotal in economic matrix of this country and needs everyone’s support.”

Like any project, lack of capital remains a major challenge in the sustainability of small to medium enterprises, particular those run by women.

“Financial spaces where individuals can get money, especially women, are closing,” said Minister Nyoni. “Financial institutions across, will not give loans to individuals without collateral and women are usually affected because the majority do not own properties.”

Minister Nyoni said it was important to continue creating financial spaces for women – even informal ones, to ensure that they can fund their businesses.

“It is because of funding challenges that my ministry has facilitated the registration of 400 savings and credit cooperatives to date, to ensure that SMES, including those owned by women, also have access to funding,” she said.

Despite her ministerial position, Minister Nyoni concedes that women continue to get a raw deal across political, social and economic strata, in-spite of the existence of legislation that promotes and support equality and equity.

Far from being easy, Minister Nyoni says women across the divide were struggling to stay afloat, because of the level of aggression they were being exposed to by men.

Minister Nyoni added that it was disheartening that society and other structures no longer valued people who uphold moral values and virtues, but now respected aggressors who push for everything, including resources.

“We are operating in an environment that respects and responds to aggression,” she said. “It does not matter, whether it is in politics, economics and socially.

“In every sector, there is so much aggression and dirty tactics employed, that women are finding it difficult to manoeuvre. Competency is no longer valued and those who are aggressive are the ones who are being rewarded and getting all the resources.” The situation was the same even in politics, Minister Nyoni noted.

She called on women to retain the societal values their parents instilled in them.

“Women need to push values that their parents instilled in them, and aggression was not one of them,” said Minister Nyoni.

“It is not a weakness to be gentle, calm and humble, neither is it a weakness to serve others before yourself. We should always remember that as women, we are not weak, we are strong because we see through men and make the right movement when the time is right.”

Despite the challenges she endures in both her professional and personal circles, Minister Nyoni, a self-motivated individual who learnt social network skills through social clubs like Girl Guides to which she was part of while growing up, is optimistic about the future.

“The future is an open and blank page that you need to write something on a daily basis, in order to prepare for it,” she said.

“It calls for proper planning and execution, and should you fail to do that, the future will certainly come, but without you.”

Minister Nyoni, a former student at St David’s Bonda Mission School, firmly believes that multitudes of women in Zimbabwe had in them high levels of ingenuity that needed to be supported with resources.

“I am a firm believer in the capabilities of women, but they are under-resourced,” she said. “Given the right support and adequately resourced, women will achieve a lot more than is the case at the moment.”

Minister Nyoni called on women to continuously upgrade themselves in whatever sphere they were in, so that they could be competitive in economic, social and political spaces.

A founder of the Organisation of Rural Associations for Progress (ORAP), Minister Nyoni has served on more than 30 national and international boards.

She has also received seven national and international awards, including the Right Livelihood Award (Alternative Nobel Price) and the Leadership Excellency Award for great achievements as SME Minister, India 2013.

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