Reshaping SME Landscape with Women Focused Finance

In a challenging economic climate, women-led businesses are emerging as one of Nigeria’s most resilient growth drivers, often thriving despite limited access to finance. The 2025 FSDH WIBI Summit showed how targeted, gender-intentional capital is unlocking its full economic potential, writes Festus Akanbi

In Nigeria’s ever-shifting economic landscape, the most profound signals of transformation are often found far from policy documents and fiscal charts. They are visible in factory floors run by women, in agribusiness ventures led by determined female founders, in digital startups built from living rooms, and in creative studios exporting Nigerian stories to the world. Across sectors, women-led enterprises are no longer emerging quietly; they are asserting influence, driving employment, and redefining value creation.

Yet this progress is unfolding alongside a persistent contradiction. While women are among Nigeria’s most active entrepreneurs, they remain disproportionately excluded from the financial systems needed to scale their ambitions. This imbalance between energy and access, potential and capital has become more pronounced as Nigeria navigates inflationary pressures, currency volatility, and a tightening credit environment.

It was against this backdrop that the 2025 edition of the FSDH Women in Business Initiative (WIBI) Summit convened in Lagos, offering not just inspiration but a serious examination of how intentional, gender-responsive capital can accelerate growth, unlock resilience, and shape the future of Nigeria’s SME economy.

The Expanding Female Economy

Nigeria’s story of female entrepreneurship is exceptional by global standards. Mastercard’s 2025 Empowerment for All report finds that 83 per cent of Nigerian women consider themselves entrepreneurs, well above the 51 per cent average across Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. This statistic alone captures a national reality: women are building businesses at scale, across manufacturing, agriculture, retail, technology, logistics, and the creative economy.

Yet participation has not translated into proportional access to finance. Only about 23 per cent of women-owned businesses in Nigeria have access to formal MSME credit. According to the African Development Bank Group, women entrepreneurs across Africa face a combined financing gap of approximately $42 billion. The implication is stark: women are starting businesses in record numbers, but are being structurally constrained at the point where growth should begin.

The consequences ripple through households and communities. Women entrepreneurs are more likely to reinvest profits into education, healthcare, and social welfare. They often serve as financial anchors for extended families and generate employment at the micro- and small-enterprise levels. When their businesses stagnate due to a lack of capital, the cost is not just individual; it is national.

Closing this gap, therefore, is not merely a question of equity; it is an economic imperative. As policymakers and economists increasingly acknowledge, inclusive finance is essential to productivity, resilience, and long-term growth.

WIBI: A Model for Gender-responsive Finance

FSDH Merchant Bank has positioned itself at the centre of this conversation through the Women in Business Initiative, which, over five years, has evolved into a comprehensive platform for supporting women-led enterprises. The 2025 WIBI Summit marked a defining moment, highlighting how deliberate financial design can translate into measurable impact.

At the heart of WIBI’s success is access to capital that reflects business realities. Over the past five years, FSDH has disbursed more than N3 billion (over $3.9 million) to women-owned enterprises. This financing has not been one-size-fits-all. Instead, it has included long-term loans with flexible repayment structures, working capital facilities for liquidity management, and short-term collateral-free credit for businesses without fixed assets.

These achievements have been underpinned by strategic partnerships with institutions such as the Bank of Industry, IFC’s gender-focused investment programmes, the AGF AFAWA Guarantee, and WEAV Capital. By blending capital and sharing risk, these collaborations enable FSDH to extend credit on more favourable terms, reaching enterprises that traditional banking typically excludes.

What emerges is a model that balances commercial discipline with developmental intent, demonstrating that gender-focused finance is not charity, but smart economics.

Beyond Capital: Building Entrepreneurial Readiness

FSDH’s approach recognises a critical truth: finance alone does not build sustainable enterprises. Without skills, governance structures, and market access, capital can become a temporary solution rather than a catalyst for growth. WIBI has therefore embedded capacity building into its core strategy.

Through partnerships with the Enterprise Development Centre, IFC, WEAV Capital, and other development organisations, WIBI has delivered structured training, mentorship, and accelerator programmes to women entrepreneurs nationwide. Initiatives such as the Women Business Impact Programme, the Female Founders Growth Programme, and the WIBI Coaching Programme have equipped more than 500 women-led SMEs with skills in financial management, investor readiness, leadership development, and business model refinement.

Beyond these programmes, over 2,000 women have participated in WIBI-led summits, masterclasses, and coaching cohorts. These platforms do more than transfer knowledge; they create networks, foster peer learning, and build confidence, often the most underestimated ingredient in enterprise growth.

Sector exhibitions and market-connect events further enhance visibility, enabling women-led businesses to attract customers, forge partnerships, and access new markets. The result is an ecosystem in which capital and capability reinforce each other, creating enterprises positioned for longevity rather than mere survival.

The Creative Economy Takes Centre Stage

One of the most compelling discussions at the 2025 summit focused on Nigeria’s creative economy, a sector valued at over $7 billion and expanding rapidly globally. Film, music, fashion, digital content, and the performing arts have become cultural exports, with women playing pivotal roles as producers, designers, directors, and digital entrepreneurs.

Despite its growth, the creative sector remains misunderstood by traditional finance. Irregular cash flows, project-based income, and informal revenue structures often lead lenders to classify it as high risk. For women creatives, this translates into limited access to patient capital and growth financing.

Veteran actress and producer Joke Silva, delivering the keynote address, articulated this challenge with clarity. She emphasised the need for deeper skills development, structured industry pathways, and financing models that recognise royalties, licensing, and intellectual property as legitimate assets. Her intervention echoed a broader consensus: the creative economy cannot reach its full potential without financial products designed around its unique dynamics.

FSDH’s commitment to developing creative-sector financing models ahead of 2026 reflects an understanding that future economic growth will increasingly come from non-traditional sectors, and that women will be central to that expansion.

Why Gender-Focused Finance Matters Now

In a period of economic uncertainty, gender-focused finance sits at the intersection of recovery and competitiveness. Research consistently shows that women-led enterprises record higher repayment rates and demonstrate substantial social impact. According to the International Monetary Fund, closing gender gaps in economic participation could boost Nigeria’s GDP by up to 23 per cent.

Targeted capital for women is therefore not a development footnote; it is a macroeconomic strategy. When financial institutions design products that reflect women’s business realities, the outcomes are tangible: stronger enterprises, faster job creation, improved household resilience, and diversified economic growth.

WIBI’s track record provides empirical evidence of this logic. Aligning finance with capacity and context illustrates how inclusion can be both impactful and sustainable.

The Road Ahead

While FSDH’s achievements through WIBI are significant, they also highlight how much remains to be done. The next phase will require scaling gender-intentional financial products, expanding partnerships with investors and development organisations, and deepening sector-specific financing across agribusiness, healthcare, digital commerce, and the creative economy.

Data will play a crucial role in this evolution, tracking performance, measuring impact, and guiding more innovative interventions. Accelerator programmes must also expand to meet the growing pipeline of women entrepreneurs ready to scale.

Nigeria’s female economy is already in motion, defined by resilience, ambition, and innovation. From farms and factories to tech hubs and creative studios, women are reshaping the contours of enterprise. As institutions like FSDH continue to broaden access to capital, capability, and community, the prospect of women-led businesses driving Nigeria’s next decade of growth becomes not just plausible but inevitable.

If inclusive finance and intentional policy remain priorities, history may well record that Nigeria’s most transformative economic chapter was powered by women whose potential was finally matched with capital that believed in their vision.