MTN, UN Women Sign MoU To Empower 200 in Kano, Cross River

The MTN Foundation, in partnership with UN Women, weekend, signed a Memorandum of Understanding ( MoU) to empower 200 women from Kano and Cross River states through capacity building, digital and financial inclusion, market access and the establishment of processing hubs.
Speaking at the signing ceremony in Lagos, the Executive Director of the MTN Foundation, Odunayo Sanya, explained that the organisation began deliberately mainstreaming gender issues a few years ago under the leadership of Karl Toriola. She noted that the foundation has recorded 43.7 per cent female participation across its programmes and is targeting a 50/50 gender balance by 2030.

“We have a target to hit 50/50, 50 per cent male and 50 per cent female by the year 2030,” Sanya said.
She explained that mainstreaming gender at the foundation is driven by the conviction that when a woman is empowered, she becomes a multiplier who can transform her community and strengthen the economy.

Sanya emphasised on the foundation’s Y’elloPreneur initiative, saying that it was launched to address the challenges female entrepreneurs face in accessing capacity, funding and markets.

“Few years ago it was important for us to intervene and help women out with access to capacity and access to funding and also access to market because that’s something the female entrepreneur struggles with, and so we commenced the Y’elloPreneur initiative and till date through the foundation we have been able to seed about 304 million Naira to a 122 female entrepreneurs and overall we’ve been able to build capacity for over 6,000female entrepreneurs,”

She added that the new programme will begin with capacity building at the Enterprise Development Centre ( EDC), Lagos , followed by the development of business cases, pitching and eventual access to funding.

UN Women Country Representative, Beatrice Eyong, said the partnership would help bring rural women into the digital economy.

“This particular project that is brought to us by our executive director will also bring our rural women into the digital system, else our rural women will have difficulties to access the digital economy and if nothing is done so many people are left out of what is becoming our future, digital solutions, ICT and others.”

She explained that Kano and Cross River were selected because of the strong agricultural activities in both states.

“The thing that first led us to go to the state is the type of agricultural activities taking place, that’s why you have Kano rice, Cross River cassava,”