Coca-Cola SABCO Mozambique and Standard Bank Mozambique initialed on Wednesday, November 9, a memorandum of understanding that aims at the collaboration of the two institutions to promote entrepreneurship, with special focus on women and youth.

This is an agreement that aims to create inclusive growth opportunities for the communities.

These opportunities will be materialized through the various entrepreneurship promotion programs, with emphasis on iCreate, developed by Standard Bank's Business Incubator.

With the iCreate program, the two entities aim to reach the ratio of women in companies, establishing gender equity. In a 12-week acceleration program, the project beneficiaries will be exposed to hands-on training that will include mentoring sessions, counseling, workshops, and business demonstrations.

In addition to collaborating on iCreate, a program also supported by the German Cooperation and its E4D partners, the bank and the soft drink company are committed to creating other initiatives aimed at empowering women.

"We are committed to executing the activities of this program with zeal and to creating other opportunities to inspire young women to design and lead their businesses, equipping them with knowledge and facilitating their access to new markets through contact with various speakers and program partners," said João Guirengane, Head of Business Banking and Commercial Clients at Standard Bank.

For its part, Coca-Cola SABCO Mozambique is committed to encouraging empowerment through sharing of knowledge, experience, local supply chain development and market opportunities.

According to Duncan Wyness, general manager of Coca-Cola Sabco Mozambique, his company will allocate its professionals as speakers of the program and thus share the experience of good business practices. "Through the Masterclass we will share our vision about the business world and above all provide trainees with tools so that after the program, they will know how to capture opportunities," said Duncan Wyness.

Duncan stressed that Coca-Cola Mozambique, has been committed to economic inclusion as part of its social responsibility since 2012, saying that "in 2019 we implemented the PET bottle collection and recycling project where in addition to ensuring the cleanliness of the environment, we impacted 6,583 women and young plastic bottle collectors through employability and training."