The pink economy

The Pink Economy initiative is an entrepreneurship development and support project focusing the youth LGBTIQA community in Zimbabwe. The Pink Economy provides an opportunity for the youth LGBTIQA community to become leaders in their lives and within their communities, and to equip them with skills that foster economic growth through entrepreneurship and advocacy for inclusion into the mainstream economy.

The COVID-19 pandemic further deepened LGBTI community marginalization and exposed the community to heightened vulnerability to poverty due to disrupted income streams causing threats to their livelihoods. Majority of LGBTI individuals are employed in the informal sector which has been hard hit by the pandemic. Coupled with the compulsory lockdowns enforced by the Government of Zimbabwe, millions of citizens including the LGBTI community experienced an erosion of sources of income with no economic leverage to sustain themselves.

Bayethe Development Institute through its flagship program, The Pink Economy, launched a livelihood support initiative to equip LGBTI entrepreneurs with life skills, business support and access to markets for resilience in the economic space where they are traditionally marginalized and discriminated based on their sexuality.

Rainbow Market

A livelihood and entrepreneurship support program, that equips LGBTQIA+ entrepreneurs with life skills and business support for resilience to cope with the economic meltdown and targeted discrimination, as well as effects of the Covid 19 pandemic. The project shall is responsive in setting up of micro businesses and developing skills for entrepreneurs to adapt and respond to the volatile and unstable economic environment faced by a large population of Zimbabweans. The project is focused on growth that is inclusive, promotion of economic rights, decent jobs and entrepreneurship that targets the most vulnerable and safeguarding economic gains.