The African Women Entrepreneurship Programme (AWEP), a non-governmental organisation has called on government and financial institutions to assist them with funds to enable them to enhance economic growth as well as boost economic empowerment in the countr.
The group also disclosed its intention to train 500 women on computer application by the end of this year.
The International President of AWEP, Mrs. Sylvia Banda disclosed this in Abuja during the launch of the Nigerian chapter of AWEP.
Banda, who appealed to government to support women and reduce the challenges women face in business, urged banks to ensure that the interest rate they plan has human face because three quarter of the world economy is generated by women.
Affirming Hilary Clinton’s statement, Mrs. Banda said: “Women can be the rock on which a freer, safer, more prosperous Africa is built. They just need the opportunity.
“The African Women’s Entrepreneurship Programme (AWEP) is an outreach, education and engagement initiative that aims to empower African women entrepreneurs to become voices of change in their communities.”
Also speaking, the President of AWEP Nigeria chapter, Mrs. Yemisi Iranloye, who also called for the empowerment of women, explained that in the world today, the role of women is impeded due to lack of empowerment, insisting that for their role to be felt, they must be empowered economically.
She said: “World Bank asserted that women empowerment will enhance productivity and development outcome and in Nigeria, women are the backbone of communities. Nigerian women believe that Nigeria will grow if they are part of the growth process.”
Still speaking on the significance of women, Mrs. Iranloye said “no nation is likely to experience economic growth if the women are not given the enabling environment. Giving women greater earning power will boost children’s health.
Speaking about AWEP’s programme for this year, she said: “We have three programmes for the year. They will take place in the North and South. In the North, we shall be focusing on two products which are moringa and yellow pepper. We want to see how we can standardise moringa and become a leading exporter of it. In the South, we will explore the species of banana and seafood.
“The last programme for 2013 is on funding. We will see how we can collaborate with the World Bank and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in order for the women to have funding opportunities. Hopefully, by the end of this year, we will have big entrepreneurs doing massive export.”
She expressed hope that the funding opportunity will create enabling environment for women to do business in the country. That, in turn, will help them to cater for their children, community and contribute to the growth of the national economy.
She further explained that AWEP has embarked on training 500 of its women by the end of 2013.
“We have done a lot of training; training on food processing, on export. We have taken the women to NACO where export is being done and we have also partnered with Intel International to start teaching women how to do their accounting through the use of computer and even how to use Facebook.
“We want to train them on how to use the power of data to promote their business internationally and we just finished training 50 women on data processing and the 50 women will, in turn, train 10 women each.
“So, by the end of 2013, we will have 500 women trained on how to use data to promote their businesses internationally.”
Reacting to the demands of the women, the Special Adviser to the President on Gender, Mrs. Asmau Abdulkadir who described economic empowerment as second to the air we breathe assured women that the issue of funding will be addressed.
