For many women operating small businesses in rural areas, formalising a business can mean navigating registration offices, transport costs, taxes and administrative requirements that are difficult to meet from remote communities.
That challenge was raised in Parliament on Wednesday by Lupane East MP Phathisiwe Machangu, who asked Government what it was doing to help women-owned businesses in the informal sector become formal enterprises.
Machangu specifically linked formalisation to access to social protection, finance, capacity building and Government procurement.
Her question was:
“What is the Government policy regarding the formalisation of women-owned SMEs operating in the informal sector, especially in rural areas, for them to access social protection, finance and capacity building in government procurement?”
Deputy Minister of Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Kiven Mutimbanyoka said Government already had a formalisation strategy and intended to make the process more accessible to rural women.
One of the proposed interventions is a mobile registration service.
“We are going to launch a mobile registration clinic for vehicles that will go to rural areas so that at the end of the day, we will minimise transport costs.”
The Deputy Minister said the service would bring registration closer to rural entrepreneurs.
“It will be much easier for our women-owned businesses in rural areas to formalise because the vehicles will be right within them.”
Government also said it was working with ZIMRA and the Companies Registry.
The stated objective, according to the Deputy Minister, is to help small businesses move beyond survival.
“We want all small businesses to move from survival to sustainability.”
But Machangu then pushed on a practical problem: what if formalisation itself becomes too complicated?
She warned against creating a system that rural women could not navigate.
“We would not want a situation where there will be demands of this and that. That will become a deterrent to the registration process.”
The Deputy Minister said Government would provide training before registration.
“We are going to simplify the registration exercise itself such that at the end of the day, the whole process is user-friendly and our people can be assisted without much of a challenge.”
Government also connected formalisation to procurement opportunities.
The Ministry said it intended to support registered businesses from 2027 and make the Government’s 30% procurement quota accessible to formalised businesses.
“Only those that are formalised can access the 30% quota as far as procurement is concerned.”