AS part of its resolve to ensure the empowerment of women in business, Nigerian Association of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA) Business Women Group (NAWORG), has organised a training workshop to sensitise business women on easy ways to have access to bank loans to boost their businesses.
In international partnership with the Centre for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) and support from Association of Nigerian Women Business Network (ANWBN), the two-day workshop themed: “Improving Access to Finance for Women Entrepreneurs in Nigeria” which held in Ibadan and hosted by the Ibadan Chamber of Commerce, Industry Mines and Agriculture sought to see end to the bottlenecks being encountered by businesswomen while trying to get loans from banks.
Speaking with Tribune Online on the sidelines of the workshop, National President, NACCIMA, Chief Mrs Alaba Lawson said the body is in partnership with Centre for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) from Washington D.C, USA, on how to empower women by having access to loans.
“Their businesses can only grow if they have easy access to loans to boost their entrepreneurship and that is why we are here so that for the west here, women can come from Osun, Ekiti, Ondo, Ogun, Lagos and Oyo States to rub minds together.
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“We have brought banks representatives to dialogue on how to remove the bottlenecks hindering business women from getting access to loans. One of the challenges is the issue of collateral forgetting the fact that women are better managers, we manage our homes, we manage funds effectively. Educate a woman you have empowered the whole nation, empower a woman, you have empowered a whole nation.”
Also speaking with Tribune Online, Oyo State NAWORG, Mrs Sade Aluko, informed that one of the cardinal objectives of the workshop was to enlighten the business women in attendance to enlighten other women in their groups so that they would be aware of the reasons they were not able to access the loans and to be tutored on how best to get it.
In his remarks, the Chief Host, President, Ibadan Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture, Ismaila Alapa, expressed optimism that the workshop would have a serious impact on breaking the cultural and traditional barriers that women used to encounter in the past years.
“In those days, women’s occupation is strictly restricted to household duties as kitchen managers but today, they are Chief Executive Officers of large business organisations throughout the world.
“With the calibre of women we have seen here, I am convinced that the door has opened widely for Nigerian women to thrive better in doing business because access to finance would be made easier than before,” he posited.
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