The Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) have partnered with the International Trade Center (ITC) to launch the SheTrade Commonwealth Project (SCP) Nigerian chapter, with a view to providing increased opportunities for women entrepreneurs.
The SCP aims to drive increased trade, productivity and competitiveness for women entrepreneurs and women- owned companies to ensure they play an important role in international trade.
It is part of the ITC’s global SheTrades initiative of strengthening the capacities of over 3,000 women-owned businesses and generating sales worth £28 million by 2020.
Olusegun Awolowo, executive director/CEO of NEPC, at the SCP implementation workshop in Lagos, said the initiative was centred on integrating women into the economic fabrics of Nigeria through connecting them to global trade.
Awolowo said the partnership intended to correct the gender disparity associated with accessing resources for business start-ups and expansion, as women entrepreneurs faced challenges in getting credit and loans while their businesses had fewer employees and shorter business longevity.
“Over the years, there have been international discourse on the need to mainstream women in economic activities to curtail dysfunction that could degrade family incomes and wellbeing. It has also been argued that women contributions to the national economic building are hardly noticed since they are prevalent in the less productive sectors and are largely invisible in the global supply chain,”Awolowo said.
He observed that in Nigeria, women supplied approximately 70 percent of agricultural labour, 50 per cent of animal husbandry-related activities and 60 per cent of food processing, yet they had access to only 20 percent of available agricultural resources.
The initiative was officially launched in April and funded by United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) and endorsed by UK Prime Minister, Theresa May, during the opening of the Commonwealth Business Forum in London.
Nicholas Schlaepfer, senior programme officer at ITC’s Women and Trade Programme office, said the programme would ensure that women entrepreneurs in Nigeria received support tailored to their specific needs, allowing them to propel their existing market representation and secure greater access to global trade.
SheTrades Initiative aims to connect one million women to market by 2020 and rallies stakeholders around the world to work together on seven actions to address trade barriers, create greater opportunities for women entrepreneurs. It focuses on agribusiness, export, ITC and services. It will be implemented by ITC over two years (from April 2018 to March 2020).
ODINAKA ANUDU
