Convener and Founder of the Women Enterprise Alliance (WenA), Aisha Babangida, has called for an urgent translation of policy commitments into real, measurable outcomes for women-led businesses across Nigeria.
Speaking at the fifth WenA Conference in Abuja, themed “Policy Reforms and Resilience Strategies for Small and Medium Enterprises in a New Economy,” Aisha Babangida emphasised that women entrepreneurs must no longer be sidelined by structural barriers such as lack of access to finance, complex regulatory processes, and limited market opportunities.
The event, supported by FIRS, FCMB, and UN Women, stressed a collective pledge to continue advancing a gender-inclusive economic framework that enables women not just to participate, but to lead.
“When I founded WenA, I believed passion would be enough. But it wasn’t. Even for those of us with networks, the paperwork, tax codes, and licensing hurdles were daunting. Now imagine what it’s like for a woman starting a micro-business in a rural town with little support,” she noted.
She announced a new national certification programme that WenA would soon launch to help women entrepreneurs prepare for public sector contracts. The initiative would focus on proper documentation, compliance, and capacity building, aimed at making women-owned businesses more competitive and contract-ready.
Babangida further stressed that the success of any economic reform must be judged not by policy documents but by their impact on women in local communities.
In her keynote address at the conference, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Entrepreneurship Development and Innovation in the Digital Economy, Ms Chayla Shagaya, reaffirmed the Federal Government’s commitment to building a supportive ecosystem for women entrepreneurs.
Meanwhile, Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Dr Zacch Adedeji, unveiled major tax reforms tailored to support small and women-led businesses. Chief among them is a corporate income tax exemption for businesses with yearly turnovers up to ₦100 million, effective from January 2026.
MEANWHILE, the Deputy Ambassador of Switzerland to Nigeria, Mr Siamak Rouhani, at another event, said women’s inclusion in governance should not be regarded as a favour but as a necessity for Nigeria’s growth and sustainable development.
Rouhani stated this yesterday in Abuja at a roundtable marking the conclusion of a three-year Swiss-funded project titled “Promoting Effective Participation of Women in Governance and Combating Gender-Based Violence in Nigeria.”
He insisted that women’s inclusion brings diversity of thought, depth of experience, and resilience to policymaking, noting that the low level of women’s participation in governance was detrimental to inclusive development.
The envoy lamented that despite constitutional guarantees and Nigeria’s commitment to international conventions, such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the 35 per cent affirmative action policy, which has been affirmed by the Nigerian judiciary, women remained grossly underrepresented in decision-making spaces.
