By Kemi Yesufu
Female small scale business owners and farmers have raised an estimated N1bn across five states.
Over 200,000 women in Abia, Kebbi, Niger, Ogun and Taraba raised the figure under the Supporting Improved Livelihood For Women in Nigeria programme currently being executed by the Nigeria For Women Project.
Nigeria For Women Project which a five year intervention by the Federal Government with support from the World Bank. NFWP is aimed at promoting gender equality and improving women’s economic status at individual and at household levels.
Speaking at a three- day workshop for media, National Project Coordinator, Mrs. Ruth Peter Mshelia said the women diligently pooled the funds together, showing how women can succeed with the right kind of training and support.
Mshelia disclosed that the programme which promotes inclusion, bringing in women from different demographics ages 18-above was designed to provide grants of N60,000 maximum to those who come together to form what she described as Women Affinity Group (WAG).
The National Project Coordinator expressed hope that the NFWP will further push government’s drive in addressing income inequality in the country.
She said: “The project development objective is to support improved livelihoods for women in targeted areas of Nigeria.
“The project has been supporting people people impacting lives of women ans families in three LGAs of each of the implementing states.
“The project, in the last one year, has been recording life changing results in women in across the country uplifting lives and improving livelihoods”.
Institution Capacity Building (ICB) Advisor, Fatima Iliya Maji, who made a presentation on working with Women Affinity Groups, disclosed that women groups which raised the N1,135,306,305 have loaned N657,054,663 from which, N312,116,792 has been paid.
The World Bank, Senior Special Development Specialist and Task Team Leader (TTL), Dr. Michael Illesanmi who addressed the workshop online stated that a country like Nigeria which seeks accelerated economic growth needs to mainstream women empowerment.
“When we invest in women, we see how this transforms household and the community at large. You know, this whole concept of investing in women’s economic empowerment, is one way to address empowerment across the board”, he said.
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