Championing women’s economic power under Nigeria’s Renewed Hope Agenda

Guided by the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, and with the support and steadfast advocacy of the First Lady, Her Excellency, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, CON, for women’s empowerment, social protection, and family wellbeing, the Honourable Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Hajiya Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim, fsi, is redefining Nigeria’s social development architecture. Her reform approach is anchored on a strategic conviction that women’s empowerment is not just a welfare agenda, but a core economic and national stability imperative. Under her stewardship, social development is being repositioned as a structured system that strengthens productivity, human capital, and community resilience.

An international expert and policy reformer with over two decades of experience, she has built a distinguished career across social development, humanitarian governance, migration management, conflict resolution, and institutional transformation. Her leadership style consistently combines policy reform with measurable outcomes, addressing complex structural challenges affecting women, children, and vulnerable populations through coordinated national frameworks rather than fragmented interventions.

As former Director-General of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), she led rapid institutional reforms that contributed to Nigeria’s upgrade from the Tier 2 Watch List to Tier 2 status in the United States Trafficking in Persons Report within six months of her leadership. At the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants, and Internally Displaced Persons (NCFRMI), she championed innovative programmes that impacted over two million persons of concern and successfully facilitated the passage of the NCFRMI Act 2022 after more than a decade of stalled legislative efforts.

In August 2023, her reform credentials and national security orientation culminated in her appointment as Nigeria’s first female Minister of State for Police Affairs, where she advanced intelligence-led policing reforms, stakeholder coordination, and institutional modernisation within the security sector. These experiences have shaped her current governance philosophy, which integrates social policy, protection systems, and economic empowerment as interconnected pillars of national development.

Since assuming office as Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development in October 2024, she has prioritised the activation of the Ministry’s full mandate and the creation of a unified, scalable social protection and women’s empowerment system. Central to this transformation is the Renewed Hope Social Impact Interventions–774 (RH-SII 774), a coordinated national framework spanning all 774 Local Government Areas, designed to reach millions of women, children, families, and vulnerable persons through integrated interventions in economic empowerment, clean energy access, food security, digital inclusion, protection services, and family resilience.

A flagship expression of this reform agenda is the Nigeria for Women Programme Scale-Up (NFWP-SU). Building on a highly successful first phase that formed 26,577 Women Affinity Groups with over 560,000 members, mobilised collective savings of approximately ₦4.9 billion, and facilitated over ₦15.6 billion in livelihood grants, the Scale-Up represents a $540 million national expansion co-financed by the World Bank alongside Federal and State Governments. The programme is designed to reach at least five million women across all States and the Federal Capital Territory, institutionalising women-led enterprise development as a national economic growth strategy.

Complementing this is the MOWA–SARA Accelerated Skills Acquisition Programme, implemented in partnership with WEMA Bank, targeting 500,000 women nationwide with vocational training, digital skills, access to finance, and structured market linkages to strengthen income security and enterprise sustainability.

Through PowerHer 774 and related clean energy pathways, including the Women in Nigeria’s Gas Sector (WINGS) initiative, the Ministry is expanding access to clean cooking and productive energy solutions while positioning women as operators and entrepreneurs across the energy value chain. This approach addresses household air pollution, time poverty, and energy exclusion while unlocking new economic opportunities for women within emerging green and gas-based value chains.

The Minister has also advanced digital inclusion through national platforms such as DigitHer and the rollout of the Happy Woman Platform, a strategic digital gateway targeting 10 million verified women registrations to connect women directly to empowerment services, finance opportunities, markets, and protection information. This digital infrastructure strengthens transparency, targeting, and scale in programme delivery.

Equally significant are child-focused and family-centred reforms under her leadership. The Ministry has renewed implementation of the National Child Policy, strengthened enforcement coordination around the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act and the Child Rights Act, and launched national action planning to end violence against children. Her RenewHer initiative is further strengthening maternal, newborn, and child health by improving early identification, community trust systems, service linkages, and access to care for vulnerable mothers and children.

At the international level, a landmark Memorandum of Understanding signed between Nigeria’s Ministry of Women Affairs and Türkiye’s Ministry of Family and Social Services is advancing cooperation on women’s empowerment, family strengthening, child protection, prevention of violence against women, and inclusion of vulnerable groups. This strategic engagement reflects Nigeria’s growing global leadership in family-centred social policy and inclusive development.

Under the decisive direction of His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, 2026 has been formally designated as the Year of Social Development and Families, reinforcing the administration’s commitment to strengthening households as the foundation of national stability, social cohesion, and long-term economic growth. This declaration further consolidates the Ministry’s role in coordinating national policies and programmes that place women, children, and families at the centre of Nigeria’s development trajectory.

As Nigeria marks International Women’s Day 2026, the message from the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development is clear: empowering women is a pathway to national productivity and security, stronger families, and sustainable economic transformation. Through disciplined institutional reforms, scalable national programmes, and data-driven social interventions, Hajiya Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim, fsi, is advancing a results-oriented model of governance that firmly positions women, children, and families as central pillars of Nigeria’s economic growth, social stability, and inclusive national development.