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Abel Owotemu, Technical Advisor and Business Coach at the International Trade Facilitators Association (ITFA), has said that about 65-70% of the Micro Small and Medium-scale Enterprises (MSMEs) in Nigeria are women.
Owotemu, who stated this during a two-day training held on MSMEs in Nigeria, tagged (SPEMN), Sustainability Coaching Programme held at the Abubakar Tafawa-Balewa University (ATBU) in Bauchi State, noted that the Nigerian economy is mainly driven by women, hence, they are very essential to socio-economic growth and development.
He noted that the training was organised to empower, train and create market access to the Micro Small and Medium-scale Enterprises (MSMEs) in the North-Eastern Region of the country.
Read also: Why most Nigerian MSMEs don’t survive 5 years — and what to do about it
He also said that the training would help the economy diversify from the oil-focused to a non-oil, export-driven one, adding that the training would also take a look at how to improve the Agriculture-Value Chain across the six geo-political zones of Nigeria.
Owotemu said, “The participation of the participants is very encouraging because almost all the participants across the North-East Zone have been registered for the training.
“Most of the SMES across the Country are led by women, so for that I thank them immensely for their wonderful participation. We have to focus on women in order to empower them, give them the tools, the connection, and the market access that they need to improve what they are doing.
Read also: Running on Empty: MSMEs run on fumes as power cuts cripple operations
“We are really happy with the population of the women of the North-East who make themselves available for the programme. After the training, the SMES product will be going all over the World, not only in Nigeria.
“Part of what we are to doing is to creating data for the SMES, after the training we’ll list them, work with them to go through certification so that they meet the inter fair trade requirements for international procurement and businesses in other people to be able to see how they do their business, where their business is located and off take from them.
“After the training, we’ll create extra income for them outside of earning in naira, their exposure to the global market to also earn in foreign currency.”
