Seek to surpass 35% women financial inclusion, NFNV boss urges Nigeria

Country Director of New Faces New Voices (NFNV), Nigeria, Aishatu Debola Aminu, said 35 per cent of women’s economic inclusiveness remains the ideal measure of success of the gender balancing advocacy but said the country must not be limited by the goal.

She said this as she announced the second series of Women Leadership and Financial Inclusion Workshop scheduled to hold in Lagos on Thursday.

The workshop, which is being organised by NFNV under the Graca Machel Trust Network and in conjunction with Women in Finance Nigeria, will focus on old talking points on women’s inclusion. But it will also seek to draw opinion leaders’ attention to relevant issues while following up by lobbying critical policymakers to advance the cause through policy reviews.

She said the workshop, which will hybrid, has drawn more-than-expected attention from women across different sectors, suggesting that Nigerian female gender are becoming aware of the need to join the mainstream economy.

The first edition of the workshop was held in Kano State in August while the Lagos edition, according to the conveners, is a follow-up to the success story of the inaugural series. While a lot of “women do not have the right information” on how they could be included in the mainstream economy, Aminu said, they eagerly look forward to what they can do to become key partners in economic growth.

She lamented that while only women’s inclusiveness is at 15 per cent, the female gender is key in driving the economic growth and development of the country.

The NFNV Country Director said Nigeria could leverage the success of women’s leadership in finance, a campaign championed by the organisation and others since 2010, to raise the bar of women’s inclusiveness.

The workshop will address alternative financing for women, pulling women out of poverty with dignity and capacity building for the female gender with resources persons drawn from finance, the regulatory environment and other fields.

The convener said Nigeria and skilled enough to compete globally but lamented that cultural biases have held it back. Those barriers, which she said, are more entrenched in the north, would need to be broken to help the women explore their potential fully.

Religion, she said, is a support and not a burden but misapplied in some circles in Nigeria to suit stereotypes. “The women are not asking for 50 per cent; they are saying hold our hands to support us to achieve our potentials,” she noted.

She insisted that “NFNV is not a talk show” but follows up its suggestions and recommendations up to the implementation stage leveraging advocacy and lobbying.

“But we realised the issue of barriers, so we started using traditional institutions, especially in the north. That is the reason, we always have traditional leaders in our workshops. For policy, we continue with advocacy. And we are making progress. As of 2010, there are not many women in top positions in banks. But that story has changed,” she said.