It is not just international women who are celebrated today, but The Commonwealth. It is no co-incidence that at the heart of this year’s Commonwealth Day celebrations is the theme of women in leadership.

The Commonwealth is potentially a huge opportunity for Britain to develop and support mutually rewarding trade, enterprise and business across all 54 nations; and a central pillar of any such mutually rewarding trade, enterprise and business must be not only the participation of women in enterprises, organisations and business es of all shapes and sizes, but the further encouragement, enablement and empowerment of women as leaders. After all, The Head of The Commonwealth is a woman.

Enhancing the role that women play at work, in organisations and business, and as entrepreneurs, from Canada to New Zealand and London to South Africa will empower, enrich and benefit The Commonwealth as a whole as well as the regions, nations and societies which comprise here.

Against such a call for enhancing women as leaders, the launch by Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) of a Women in Business initiative to popularise the 50 Million African Women Speak (50MAWSP) platform is to be most warmly welcomed.

Across Comoros, Djibouti, DR Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Eswatini, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Seychelles, Sudan, Tunisia, Zambia and Zimbabwe, the initiative will hopefully not only  inspire other women, especially younger women, to aspire to not only leadership roles, but establishing their own entrepreneurial ventures; but provide a peer based learning, mentoring and sharing of knowledge.