Include EveryOne Program is having Tremendous Impact in COMESA – CBC CEO

COMESA Business Council (CBC) is committed to continue working with HiPipo on the actualization of the Include EveryOne Program across the twenty-one COMESA member states.

This was confirmed by Teddy Soobramanien, the Chief Executive Officer of COMESA Business Council (CBC) while giving an update on the Include EveryOne Program implementation in the COMESA region, who noted that the program’s initial phase covering Zambia and Malawi continues to have tremendous impact on informal cross border traders, women and youth entrepreneurs plus FinTech stakeholders in general.

“We have initially covered two countries; Zambia and Malawi. We are having a tremendous impact with this project on the ground with cross border traders, young entrepreneurs, women entrepreneurs and FinTechs in general. We are making a huge difference and hope that some leaders in the FinTech industry will emerge from this project,” Teddy Soobramanien, the CBC CEO said, adding

“Our partnership with HiPipo on the Include EveryOne program has been a great example of collaboration and partnership. Collaboration is key when working on projects of such magnitude as it ensures they have expected impact. With collaboration, we are able to leverage on the comparative advantage of each and every one of us and I believe all stakeholders need to have an active involvement in such projects so that they are a success.”

First implemented in East Africa, the Include Everyone program is a broad Financial Inclusion program that engages all stakeholders with the ultimate aim of sustainably promoting financial inclusion. It promotes the adoption of secure digital financial services as a vital tool for financial inclusion.

The Include EveryOne Program has since October 2024 to date impacted thousands of beneficiaries from both Zambia and Malawi including over 100 Women in FinTech Hackathon Participants, Mentors and Facilitators, 40 FinTech organizations that participated in the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative and their end-users, more than 100 Traders’ leaders that participated in the Women in Leadership trainings and thousands of Informal Women Cross Border Traders operating in Chipata and Mwami-Mchinji One Stop Border Point – which is the main border between Zambia and Malawi.

Soobramanien highlighted that HiPipo’s Include EveryOne program well aligns with CBC’s Digital Financial Inclusion Project which aims at fast-tracking Financial inclusion, increasing participation of MSMEs in regional trade, increasing volumes of cross border transactions, increasing visibility of African products within regional markets and directly respond to the intra-trade deficit in the region.

“The move in to Digital Financial Inclusion is to solve a major problem we have in the region, which is the low level of financial inclusion. CBC has been very much involved in a number of projects aimed at empowering women, young people and SMEs to join the main stream of financial market and also help their financial inclusion. We are in the process of developing an online retail payment platform to help small traders, cross border traders, women entrepreneurs and young people trade at the level of the COMESA Region,” he said.

He acknowledged the generous contribution of the Gates Foundation in actualizing the Include EveryOne program in the COMESA region, and appealed for more support in order for the entire COMESA region to benefit from this digital and financial inclusion revolution.

“Since COMESA represents twenty-one countries, this is such a wonderful project which we would really want to extend to other countries so that the whole of the COMESA countries can benefit from the Include EveryOne Program. This project has benefited tremendous from funding from the Gates Foundation. We do hope that as we expand this program to other countries, we will continue to get funding and support from the Gates Foundation,” he concluded.