Succour for women ravaged by COVID-19

By Lucas Ajanaku

A platform, sme.ng, has been unveiled to mitigate the impact of COVID 19 on women-owned businesses.

Since its launch, its purpose has been to empower and make life easier for women and youths. Over the years, through its Ebi Fund, Youth Innovation Fund, Women Investment Fund and the She Works Here Accelerator, sme.ng is positioned to give financial support, technical support and mentoring for small medium enterprises (SME) owners.

sme.ng has launched a new solution to empower women-owned businesses with economic opportunities, business sustainability and improving resilience to the negative effects of the pandemic and economic downturn.

The all-women’s platform which is set to go live in August will help overcome the barriers female entrepreneurs face as the digital solutions offer a new and scalable pathway to not just solve the issues of access to finance but will generate market linkages for female entrepreneurs.

With partnerships from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) through its National Collateral Registry, Bank of Industry (BoI), and other financial institutions, the Ebi Marketplace offers the registered vendors access to finance and investment opportunities; access to wider markets; access to technical and business support (business advisory, legal services and so much more); access to qualified staff and linkage to other female entrepreneurs.

In addition, the Ebi Marketplace platform will be the first all-women’s e-market platform which is safe and user-friendly. It will also feature a Nigerian women SME directory with sector and location tags to expand the reach of products and services across Nigeria and beyond. The Ebi Marketplace will be all inclusive and will offer a one-stop shop information portal of opportunities for women entrepreneurs. The platform will also include features that will help drive sales and boost revenues for women-owned businesses, as well as provide other resources that will enable women-owned businesses to thrive.

To join the Ebi Market Platform, interested female entrepreneurs can register to be vendors on www.ebimarketplace.com. The Ebi marketplace will officially go live on August 1, 2021 and the App will be available for download on Play Store and Apple Store. Successful sign-ups would officially become vendors on the platform and can access all the benefits on the Ebi Marketplace Platform. Women in cooperatives and associations from all over the country are also encouraged to register.