Women comprise 40 per cent of the world’s workforce. About 30 to 37 per cent of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are also women-owned. Despite these, discriminatory gender policies and lack of finance continue to stifle the growth of women entrepreneurs in Nigeria and other emerging markets. With unmet financial needs estimated at between $260 billion and $320 billion a year, for women-owned businesses, experts are calling for action. Assistant Editor OKWY IROEGBU-CHIKEZIE reports.
They are reports that should spur the authorities and development experts to action with a view to addressing the imbalance therein. For instance, the World, Bank’s ‘Gender at Work Report (2014) asserts that “on virtually every global measure, women are more economically excluded than men”.
Also, the Global Findex, a comprehensive database measuring how people save, borrow, and manage risks in 148 countries, revealed that women are less likely than men to have formal bank accounts.
Giving more details, the report said in Nigeria and other developing economies, women are 20 per cent less likely than men to have an account at a formal financial institution and 17 per cent less likely to have borrowed formally in the past year.
The report added that even if women can gain access to a loan, they often lack access to other financial services such as savings, digital payment methods, and insurance.
The report added that restrictions on opening a bank account, such as requirements for a male family member’s permission, restrict women’s access to accounts. It also said that lack of financial education can also limit women from gaining access to and benefitting from financial services.
In addition, many women may have access to financial services in name only. Although, accounts might be opened in the name of a woman, the decision-making authority around the use of those funds often lies with a male relative.
These obvious discriminations against women, according to the Principal Consultant, TMC, Mrs. Toki Mabogunje, persist despite that women are known to be better mangers of human and material resources.
Mrs. Mabogunje said the neglect of women in policy formulation and implementation has made it impossible to achieve gender equality. She insisted that there is the need to empower all women and girls by ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable economic and inclusive growth for women.
She also canvassed the need to ensure fair and progressive tax systems by addressing explicit and implicit gender biases in tax policies. She said tax incentives should be provided to support ownership of assets and property by women, while also ensuring that women are properly integrated or closely linked to national sustainable development strategies.
“There is need for government to prioritise investments in accessible, affordable and quality social infrastructure and essential services that reduce and redistribute women’s unpaid care and domestic work to enable their full participation in the economy,” the consultant said, at the Second African Women’s Economic Summit held in Lagos recently.
According to experts, many of the sectors critical for economic growth rely heavily on women. Apart from the fact that women make up 40 per cent of the world’s workforce, about 30 to 37 per cent of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are female-owned.
This translates to about eight to 10 million women-owned firms in Nigeria and other emerging markets. However, the snag, experts note, is that discriminatory gender policies and lack of finance have continued to stifle the growth and development of women entrepreneurship.
For instance, experts estimate that there are unmet financial needs of between $260 billion and $320 billion a year for women-owned businesses. They note that access to credit can open up economic opportunities for women, while bank accounts can be a gateway to the use of additional financial services.
The experts are emphatic that women entrepreneurs and employers face significantly greater challenges than men in gaining access to financial services. And this was what the Second African Women’s Economic Summit set out to address.
Delivering a paper entitled: “Increasing Women’s Access to Finance: Challenges and Opportunities, the former Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, stated that legal regulations and customary rules often restrict women’s access and control over assets that can be accepted as collateral such as land or livestock.
He further stated that women are less likely to have land titles under their name, even when their families own land, and are also less likely than men to have control over land, even when they do formally own it. He expressed regrets that biased inheritance rights often bestow land to male relatives, leaving both widows and daughters at a disadvantage.
Emir Sanusi is not done. He pointed out that cultural norms and family responsibilities have profound effects on the type of economic activities that women can engage in, the technologies available to them, the people and agencies with whom they can interact with, the places they can visit, the time they have available and the control they can exert over their own resources.
He is in a priviledged position to know many of these odds against women. Apart from his position as Emir of Kano, the custodian of the culture and tradition of the ancient kingdom, he understands the nitty-gritty of the nation’s economy, having been a former CBN governor. This was perhaps, why, at the summit, he frowned at some lending practices that emerge as a result of financial institutions’ lack of knowledge to offer products tailored to women’s preferences and constraints.
The Emir, therefore, suggested that in line with World Bank’s insistence to ensure that the full potential benefits of financial inclusion for women are secured, there should be advisory assistance and lending support for women. He said such support should come in the form of increased access to finance and markets by partnering with developing countries and financial institutions within those countries.
He also called for reducing gender-based barriers in the business environment, and the creation of business opportunities for institutions and in the private sector to improve working conditions for female employees, market segmentation, and inclusion of women in community relationships.
Besides, there is a need to support business skills and financial capability trainings for women, while also building the business case for equal economic opportunities for men and women.
Some initiatives to boost women’s access to finance
The Federal Government some years back launched the Public Works and Women/Youth Empowerment Scheme (PW/WYE). The programme is a component of the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) targeted at generating about 370,000 jobs across the country and also creating employment opportunities for women and youth in labour intensive public works.
Specifically, the programme, which was in partnership with the states, local governments and the private sector, was expected to generate 50,000 skilled jobs and 320,000 unskilled job opportunities. To boost the scheme, the government set aside some portion of the partial subsidy on petroleum prices removal proceeds to support the employment generation intervention nationwide.
There is also the Youth Enterprise with Innovation in Nigeria (YouWiN) Programme to generate jobs by encouraging and supporting aspiring entrepreneurial youths in Nigeria. The programme was set up to develop and execute business ideas of young Nigerians that will create jobs.
It also provides aspiring youths with a platform to showcase their business acumen, skills and aspirations to business leaders, investors and mentors in Nigeria.
Private sector funds to the rescue
Apart from PW/WYE and YouWiN, a number of private sector initiatives to assist women and youth entrepreneurs have also been launched. For instance, President of Dangote Group Alhaji Aliko Dangote has partnered with Bank of Industry (BoI) to set up a N5 billion Small and Medium scale Enterprises fund to grant low interest loans to entrepreneurs and small businesses in Nigeria.
According to the industrialist, “the funds are expected to impact directly on up to 13,000 registered groups in the country. Each group shall have an average of 20 entrepreneurs, thus impacting the lives of up to 250,000 micro-entrepreneurs through job creation, spreading across all the six geo-political zones in Nigeria.”
The Tony Elumelu Foundation also launched a $100m Pan-African Entrepreneurship Initiative, which is a multi-year programme of training, funding, and mentoring, designed to empower the next generation of African entrepreneurs.
“I am determined to ensure that Africa’s next generation of entrepreneurs have the platform they need to turn their entrepreneurial aspirations into sustainable businesses that will drive economic growth and job creation across Africa,” the Foundation’s Chairman Tony Elumelu said at the programme launch.
Similarly, since its inception, the Shell LiveWIRE Nigeria has provided 2,748 young people with funding to start and grow their businesses.The fund is mostly targeted at young entrepreneurs from Rivers, Bayelsa and Delta States by Shell LiveWIRE Nigeria to enable them start up, or grow, their own businesses.
However, for these initiatives to make the desired impacts, the Emir urged policymakers on the need to establish an enabling environment that will facilitate access to financial services for women entrepreneurs through the development of a supportive legal and regulatory framework, and the development of education and training opportunities that are more aligned with the specific needs of women.
Hear him: “Skilled women are likely to access finance more easily. Therefore, a necessary step in enhancing finance for women should be to ensure an upscale of their leadership, technical, entrepreneurial and managerial skills. An important priority for governments should be increasing the enrolment of girls across all levels of education complemented by efforts to improve the quality of education that they receive.”
Emir Sanusi reiterated that while it is important to build the capacity of financial institutions to better serve women entrepreneurs, it is also imperative that women are provided with the opportunity to be financially literate, so that they can speak the language of finance.
The former CBN boss noted that it will be pertinent to explore the possibility of enacting laws that address gender inequality, sexual harassment and discrimination as first step towards improving their access to financial services.
He lamented that those who have formal sector jobs are constrained by the reproductive roles they play. According to him, majority of women occupy low level posts that offer them the flexibility they need to manage their households while working in the formal sector.
“They (women) spend most of their time doing unpaid household work, which undermines their business potential, he added.
