Women in Nigeria are highly interested in becoming entrepreneurs, but face unique challenges to do so, such as barriers to access financial and business development services that are critical to formalizing and growing their businesses.
Women in Nigeria are highly interested in becoming entrepreneurs, but face unique challenges to do so, such as barriers to access financial and business development services that are critical to formalizing and growing their businesses.
Women in Nigeria are highly interested in becoming entrepreneurs, but face unique challenges to do so, such as barriers to access financial and business development services that are critical to formalizing and growing their businesses.
This was one key finding of the National Assessment of Women’s Entrepreneurship Development (WED) in Nigeria, which combines qualitative and quantitative methods to analyze and score six framework conditions and 17 sub-conditions that affect women entrepreneurs and their ability to access the resources and support they need to grow sustainably and on an “equal opportunity” basis.
The assessment looked at the legal and regulatory system, the existence of policy leadership and coordination for the promotion of WED, access to gender-sensitive financial services, access to gender-sensitive business development support (BDS) services, access to markets and technology by women entrepreneurs and their representation and participation in policy dialogue.
Each of these framework conditions is scored along a 5-level scale based on the evidence found. In Nigeria, as in other countries, access to markets and technology received the lowest score, mostly due to the lack of specific programmes to support women in accessing public procurement and supply chain opportunities. The report to be made public in the coming months, identifies further conditions and subconditions where actions are more pressingly needed.
The findings of the WED assessment, which highlights the areas of strengths and weaknesses in Nigeria.
The findings of the assessment, undertaken under the project “Promoting Gender Equality and Formalization through Women’s Entrepreneurship Development in Nigeria,” were validated by tripartite constituents and women’s groups during a workshop in Abuja on November 9, 2022. In addition, the 56 participants endorsed a body of recommendations under each framework condition targeted at government, social partners and other stakeholders to SME and women’s entrepreneurship development including the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency (SMEDA). Among the recommendations, two were particularly highlighted: the need to simplify access to business development services and enterprise formalization processes through the creation of a “one-stop-shop” centralized unit situated closer to women entrepreneurs across different locations and the mechanism for the implementation of policies in favor of women’s entrepreneurship development should be strengthened to ensure impact is achieved.
Tripartite constituents validate the findings of the WED Assessment in Abuja, Nigeria.
A further milestone of the project was met a few days later as the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) and its Network of Entrepreneurial Women (NNECA) launched the results and action plan emanating from their institutional gender self-assessment “Women’s Entrepreneurship Self-Check (WE-Check)”. This process, developed by the ILO’s Women’s Entrepreneurship Development Programme (ILO-WED), enables organisations to self-assess the extent to which they target and serve women entrepreneurs, as a means to improve their performance and enhance their impact and sustainability.
After a six month process of self-exploration and assessment, NECA presented a series of key actions to improve their gender responsiveness in areas of attracting and retaining clients (members), strategies and operations, and services and products for members. Despite the action plan just being launched, results have already begun to show as mentioned during the November 15 event by Ms. Celine Oni, NECA’s Director for Learning and Development:
“Our forms for collecting data have actually changed, and team members of NECA are beginning to look inwards to review our data collecting instruments. I hope this will go a long way to shape the kinds of services and products we offer, and the way we take matters of women entrepreneurship forward, for the betterment of our country”
In addition to the WED assessment and the WE-Check, the project recently completed and validated a study on barriers and opportunities to formalize women-led economic units and their workers in Lagos and Rivers States.
Looking forward
With the completion and validation of studies validated and NECA’s gender self-assessment, the Project will be in a position to provide, during the first quarter of 2023, technical support to government and social partners to implement the consolidated roadmap of recommendations. These recommendations aim to strengthen policies, practices and dialogue mechanisms that positively impact women’s entrepreneurship development, the women, their workers and the formalization of their businesses with a view to improve livelihoods and create sustainable enterprises.
This was one key finding of the National Assessment of Women’s Entrepreneurship Development (WED) in Nigeria, which combines qualitative and quantitative methods to analyze and score six framework conditions and 17 sub-conditions that affect women entrepreneurs and their ability to access the resources and support they need to grow sustainably and on an “equal opportunity” basis.
The assessment looked at the legal and regulatory system, the existence of policy leadership and coordination for the promotion of WED, access to gender-sensitive financial services, access to gender-sensitive business development support (BDS) services, access to markets and technology by women entrepreneurs and their representation and participation in policy dialogue.
Each of these framework conditions is scored along a 5-level scale based on the evidence found. In Nigeria, as in other countries, access to markets and technology received the lowest score, mostly due to the lack of specific programmes to support women in accessing public procurement and supply chain opportunities. The report to be made public in the coming months, identifies further conditions and subconditions where actions are more pressingly needed.
The findings of the WED assessment, which highlights the areas of strengths and weaknesses in Nigeria.The findings of the assessment, undertaken under the project “Promoting Gender Equality and Formalization through Women’s Entrepreneurship Development in Nigeria,” were validated by tripartite constituents and women’s groups during a workshop in Abuja on November 9, 2022. In addition, the 56 participants endorsed a body of recommendations under each framework condition targeted at government, social partners and other stakeholders to SME and women’s entrepreneurship development including the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency (SMEDA). Among the recommendations, two were particularly highlighted: the need to simplify access to business development services and enterprise formalization processes through the creation of a “one-stop-shop” centralized unit situated closer to women entrepreneurs across different locations and the mechanism for the implementation of policies in favor of women’s entrepreneurship development should be strengthened to ensure impact is achieved.
Tripartite constituents validate the findings of the WED Assessment in Abuja, Nigeria.
A further milestone of the project was met a few days later as the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) and its Network of Entrepreneurial Women (NNECA) launched the results and action plan emanating from their institutional gender self-assessment “Women’s Entrepreneurship Self-Check (WE-Check)”. This process, developed by the ILO’s Women’s Entrepreneurship Development Programme (ILO-WED), enables organisations to self-assess the extent to which they target and serve women entrepreneurs, as a means to improve their performance and enhance their impact and sustainability.
After a six month process of self-exploration and assessment, NECA presented a series of key actions to improve their gender responsiveness in areas of attracting and retaining clients (members), strategies and operations, and services and products for members. Despite the action plan just being launched, results have already begun to show as mentioned during the November 15 event by Ms. Celine Oni, NECA’s Director for Learning and Development:
“Our forms for collecting data have actually changed, and team members of NECA are beginning to look inwards to review our data collecting instruments. I hope this will go a long way to shape the kinds of services and products we offer, and the way we take matters of women entrepreneurship forward, for the betterment of our country”
In addition to the WED assessment and the WE-Check, the project recently completed and validated a study on barriers and opportunities to formalize women-led economic units and their workers in Lagos and Rivers States.
Looking forward
With the completion and validation of studies validated and NECA’s gender self-assessment, the Project will be in a position to provide, during the first quarter of 2023, technical support to government and social partners to implement the consolidated roadmap of recommendations. These recommendations aim to strengthen policies, practices and dialogue mechanisms that positively impact women’s entrepreneurship development, the women, their workers and the formalization of their businesses with a view to improve livelihoods and create sustainable enterprises.