By Valentine Benjamin

Tope Imasekha, a development economist, and gender equality advocate, is powering small business success for Nigerian women through a Non-governmental Organisation (NGO), Women Impacting Nigeria (WIN), a female led NGO which she founded in 2010. The initiative is dedicated to gender equality and empowerment of women, and is significantly contributing to bridging the gender gap in financial inclusion and autonomy.

WIN provides women with financial grants and empower underserved communities of women with business skills, to enhance and increase their business visibility and productivity. Some of its programs include Financial Literacy and Business Training, Microfinance and Grants, Advocacy, Partnerships with Financial Institutions, Technology Utilization and Mentorship Programs.

On one hot afternoon in November last year, WIN’s staff and volunteers, while researching and acquiring resources for their 2022 edition of Widow’s Empowerment Program (WEP), an initiative targeted at women, particularly widows who run business enterprises and who need financial and business skills to help them grow their businesses in Ikeja, the capital city of Nigeria’s commercial center, Lagos. 

WIN’s Research and Development team discovered a community of cane weaving women who operate their cane weaving business on a small scale as a result of lack of access to financial products to grow their businesses.

The team went out on a survey to different locations, after conducting the needs assesment, they decided to settle for Mende in Maryland because the location and women there matched their criteria which are: low-income women, petty business owners and artisans in need of funds to support their business, has a number of widows. 

Business women speak on accessing finances

“They approached me at my shop where I sell provision, cosmetics, and weave canes into cake baskets in November and spoke to me about their intervention program for women entrepreneurs who are widowed and a grant they have approved to support our businesses. They interviewed some of my business colleagues who are also widows and picked five of us” Esther recalls.

“The team came back one month after and gave each one of us support fund of N100,000 to grow our businesses and advised us on how to utilize the money and that fund helped me a lot.” She told AMAKA Studio.

Financial freedom for women still a challenge

Despite an increase in the number of women in the workforce in past decades, female financial freedom is still not easily realised by most, especially after marriage. Women usually lose control of their finances after marriage because either they quit their jobs, consolidate their wealth with their partners, or just leave the fiscal management to their husbands. 

Gender disparities in access to economic resources directly affect women’s potential for achieving the kind of financial autonomy they need. Nigeria is highly driven by culture and religion, and gender rights concerns are often trampled upon by toxic masculinity, which often affect women’s household decision-making. 

While financial inclusion is being accelerated globally by mobile phones and broadband penetration, the gender gap between men and women’s access to financial services in Nigeria shows a high level of disparity. For instance, 72% of men had access to financial accounts while 65% of women had no such financial access, according to the 2017 Global Findex data.

The World Bank defines financial inclusion as a situation in which individuals and their businesses have access to affordable financial products and services that meet their needs like transactions, payments, savings, credit, and insurance and is delivered responsibly and sustainably. 

After Obugwa lost her husband whom she started her cane business with, the family economy took a drastic downturn which made life become difficult for she and her five children.

She told AMAKA that her late husband was a civil servant in one of the government ministries in Delta State located in Nigeria’s oil-rich region. “He started the cane weaving business before relocating to Delta State for his work. Life was going well then, and our family economy was good to a large extent.”

“But life took a drastic turn after he passed in March 2012 because my three children were in the university then, he was sick about three months before he passed. It was a challenging moment for my family and I, but we scaled through.”

Charity Akpojotar, another widow who benefited from WIN’s WEP last year, opted for a loan from a microfinance bank prior to the program, to fund her business, but she faced challenges with paying back, especially with the interest rate placed on the loan which made it nearly unaffordable for her low-income business.

“I opted for a loan in one of the microfinance banks here in Lagos when I needed money to support my business, it was the peak period of my cane weaving business which kicks off from October and ends in December during Christmas celebrations.”

“But the terms required that I pay on a weekly basis, and with interest. My business is such a seasonal one, and that posed a little challenge for me paying back because sales weren't going well. So that made me stop taking loans from them.” She told AMAKA.

Charity say WIN’s business support fund helped her a lot, “they also followed up with us to see how much progress we are making with the funds.”

Financial inclusion strategies, including products and services, mostly depend on formal tools, but realistically, most women tilt towards informal means for their finances; to earn a living and save, compared to men—a more reason why the financial inclusion of men keeps increasing, leading to a decline in that of women. 

Need for financial inclusion

Imasekha says enhancing financial inclusion for women with access to capital, is fundamental to their empowerment.

“Investing in a woman can sometimes be challenging, but she's more likely to multiply that investment in her business and spend it on education, healthcare, and building up a family in her community which all leads to socioeconomic development. Basically, what we're seeing is a relationship between women's financial inclusion and sustainable economic growth and the sustainable development goals.”

“I think it's even more of a problem because microfinance banks are created to encourage credits and savings, but you’d find out that women in the informal economy do not have bank accounts, and microfinance banks are supposed to be banking for the less privileged.”

Nigeria is a male-controlled society where gender inequality and key drivers of financial exclusion—education, level of income and lack of trust in financial service providers are highly driven by culture and religion.

Even in the country’s upper chamber of the parliament, the Gender and Equal Opportunities Bill, a bill which seeks to address the discriminations women face in the patriarchal society, was rejected by the lawmakers. 

Imasekha blames this on some of the “missing gaps in women’s representation” during the policy creation, and the judiciary which would enforce the actual law.

“Having more gender-specific bills supported by female lawmakers in the decision-making process for them to be passed, and laws that can help to address concerns of women, especially their financial autonomy would go a long way in boosting their self-dependence.”

“We have a lot of programmes that focus thematically on health education, women economic empowerment, technology and the environment. We also focus on gender equality within the sustainable development goals, to close the widened disparity women and girls face.” She told AMAKA.

WIN has covered 19 Lagos administrative regions which includes Ikorodu, Eti-Osa, Surulere, Maryland, Ikeja, Ikorodu, Bariga, Ikoyi, Alimosho, Ajah, Lekki, Ibeju-lekki, Epe, Surulere, Yaba, Badagry and others.

The NGO focuses more on addressing the needs of women and girls at community level with volunteers in each of the community it works. The team also works with the community leaders to enable them to gain the trust of the people they intend to impact their lives.

Imasekha says one of WIN’s key programmes is the women SME programme, where the women get access to grants, funds, mentoring, business school development and training support that would help them scale.

“We also noticed that gender-based violence is actually very prevalent in Nigeria and we've created this self-defence class with legal counsel, like free legal aid to help address gender-based violence. We added business grants to that, because we realised that women are more financially independent and autonomous when they have the resources that they need to scale.”

“We offer self-defence training and help them with any legal aid they have, if they have any domestic disputes or any domestic violence disputes. We also give them business training and a grant to make sure they are financially included and financially autonomous.” She said.