Rural women raise, sustain N1.1bn from social capital in 5 states

Not less than N1bn has been raised and sustained in various rural businesses, across the six geo-political zones of Nigeria by Nigerian rural women engaged in various petty trade.

The amount was pooled by over 200,000 women in Abia, Kebbi, Niger, Ogun and Taraba states by evolving a sustained livelihood programme, through their social capital.

This was revealed at a two day workshop by the Nigeria for Women Project (NFWP), which opened in Abuja, geared towards enhancing the Women Socio-economic status in Nigeria, a programme supported by the World Bank.

National Project Coordinator, Mrs. Ruth Peter, Mshelia said the programme has proven to be self-sustaining and targeted at improving the skills of rural women financially, socially and boosting their networks.

According to her, the Niger state government has finalised processes for grant access by her rural women in the Women Affinity Group (WAG), designed to keel the women in a closed group based on their social and economic realities.

She said the women were self selected and grouped with a minimum of 15 persons and a maximum of 25 persons along social economic level and enjoined to boost their social skills along side financial education.

She noted that while they have been able to build and convert their social capital to such a huge resource base, the programme which was designed to provide grants of N60,000 maximum to individuals in the Women Affinity Group.

The National Project Coordinator who said being a member of WAG was not a guarantee to the proposed grant which for which North central beneficiaries would begin to recover disbursement next week.

According to her, only a successful business plan, would attract grant approval and disbursement.

She maintained that one of the strategies adopted by the Nigeria for Women Initiative to eliminate elite capture was, consistency in the programme which would reflect in the attendance of participants.

In her presentation which provided insight on the women affinity group, Fatima Iliya Maji, and Institution Capacity Building (ICB), pointed out that 237,392 women groups which raised the N1,135,306,305 has 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 said “You know, this whole concept of investing in women’s economic empowerment, is one way to address empowerment across the board.

He said that “In Nigeria, the government in its wisdom decided to invest as part of this whole human capital agenda in women’s economic empowerment and I was just telling,

“When we invest in women, you, transform households for the better and by extension communities, and the country at large.

So the government wants to invest in this because we need a more productive set of women.

An assessment of gender gaps in economic activities in Nigeria the government found out that there are gender gaps that manifested in discriminatory social norms, information and knowledge, the non-competitive markets and the need to push gender-inclusiveness at informal level.