FG, World Bank Move to Tackle Poverty Among North-west Women

•Empower 460,000 women in six states  

Francis Sardauna in Katsina

The federal government has extended its Nigeria for Women Project (NFWP) to the North-west region of the country to tackle poverty among rural women and improve financial inclusion and child welfare.

The World Bank-supported project would institutionalise a framework where women in the region would be economically empowered and socially secured through access to credit to boost their businesses.

At a two-day North-west Governor’s Summit on the NFWP scale-up in Katsina Wednesday, Minister of Women Affairs, Hon. Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim, said women constituted over 60 per cent of the country’s population, but only 30 per cent of them owned formal businesses.

Sulaiman-Ibrahim said many women entrepreneurs in Nigeria continued to struggle with limited access to capital and were locked in small scale activities, “unable to grow their businesses or leverage opportunities in the formal economy”.

She, however, said the scale-up phase of the NFWP would unlock the financial potential of the women and address social norms before implementation and integrated programming for effective service delivery.

The minister said it would also enhance livelihood interventions, create an enabling environment for women to thrive in their businesses, and improve their savings culture, as well as leadership.

Sulaiman-Ibrahim explained that when women were empowered with the needed finances and trained in income-generating skills, they will transit from marginal economic actors to drivers of growth and inclusion.

She urged state governments to demonstrate political will and ensure timely release of counterpart funding to support the North-west women project through their state project coordinators.

“From our women beneficiaries, we expect commitment to the values of transparency, self-reliance, and collective progress. Empowerment, as I often say, is not delivered, it is co-created,” she said.

Earlier, World Bank Country Director, Matthew Verghis, said the project had improved the livelihoods of 460,000 women across six states and 18 local governments in less than three years of its implementation.

Represented by Team Task Leader of the Nigeria for Women Project, Michael Ilesanmi-Gboyega, Verghis added that when impediments to women’s economic empowerment were tackled it would unlock $27 billion into the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

He said, “We started the project in 2018 with $100 million, but two years into the programme, the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) had reached out together with the Federal Minister of Finance and the Federal Minister of Women Affairs to say, we want to expand this into a national programme, and that’s what birthed the Nigeria for Women’s Scale-up Operation.”

In his remarks, Governor Dikko Umaru Radda of Katsina State commended the federal government for initiating the project and said it would benefit 33,000 wards in the state, from three local government areas of Katsina, Funtua, and Daura.

Radda said excluding women from development was not only unjust, but also economically unwise. He added that his administration was committed to improving the livelihood of women and children in the state.

He stated, “Let me begin by expressing my sincere gratitude to your partners, to our partners, the World Bank, the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs, and all stakeholders that made this summit possible.

“Your commitment in advancing the gender equality and women’s empowerment is not only commendable, but essential for the future of our nation under the leadership of President Bola Tinubu.

“We are gathered here at a pivotal moment in our national development journey, and a moment when we must rethink how we approach from inclusion and sustainability.”