From Business Owner to Services Champion

Mary Kalikawa is deeply committed to female and youth empowerment. She is both Managing Director of Kiroyera Tours and Chairwoman of the Association of Women in Tourism Tanzania.

Mary is a services sector champion, working with ITC to prepare the way to launch a Tanzania Services Platform. The platform will bring together services SMEs and business associations to develop a coherent business voice for engagement with government on services competitiveness issues, a strategy for public/private partnership, and services stakeholder input to services regulatory review.

“We are trying to improve public awareness of the constraints to national, industry and firm level competitiveness and to facilitate services exports,”

Mary says, “this is important for Tanzania’s regional integration in East Africa.” Getting services stakeholders together is a challenge, but one worth pursuing. As Mary points out, “services trade provides a lot of income earning opportunities for women –generally better opportunities than in other sectors. Services provide cleaner jobs and greener jobs and often more flexible family friendly jobs. But we have to build our skill sets and improve access to finance for women entrepreneurs.”

‘Services trade provides a lot of income earning opportunities for women –generally better opportunities than in other sectors. Services provide cleaner jobs and greener jobs and often more flexible family friendly jobs. But we have to build our skill sets and improve access to finance for women entrepreneurs.’