“Skills acquisition and entrepreneurial training programmes like the one offered by Wema Bank and SheCan could help increase the earning potential of women and make a significant contribution to raising Nigeria’s GDP”.
Wema Bank Plc is partnering with SheCan Nigeria to train over a thousand women in Ijebu-Igbo, Ogun State in helping them attain their personal and business potential. The train will impact skills that the women require to improve their financial status.
The Skill Acquisition Program kicked off on 18 August 2021. The programme is an offshoot of the SheCan Conference 2021 which was held at Muson Centre, Lagos, themed “SheCan Do More”. SheCan Nigeria used the conference as an opportunity to launch the Skills Acquisition Program.
The training on offer include Digital Marketing, Effective Marketing, Networking and Product Promotion. Beneficiaries will also gain specific skills with which they could venture into selling services and products such as Waste to Wealth, Bead Making, Hair/Wig Making, Hat Making, Make-up and Catering. There were also classes in Antiseptic, Petroleum Jelly and Insecticide, production and Olive oil, shampoo, Liquid toilet soap, Air freshener making.
Dignitaries like the Keegbo Atikori of Ijebu, Igbo, Alayeluwa Oba Ibitoye Solaja, the Chairman Ijebu North Local Government and Honorable Omobolaji Odusanya among others graced the opening of the training.
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Abiola Nejo, Head of Gender Banking at Wema Bank Plc, said “A major takeout from the programme was to help every woman realize that she can do more irrespective of her background, gender, education, and career.”
She added that “Wema Bank will continually partner with women-focused initiatives like SheCan Nigeria to empower adolescent girls and women through strategic training, mentoring, counseling, skill acquisition and community empowerment programmes.
According to the World Bank, the participation of Women in the global labour force fell to 48% in 2019 from 51% in 2000. The amount of time women spend doing unpaid care is three times longer than men. Examples of unpaid labour that women spend hours on include unpaid domestic work, childcare and other family care work.
Also, the gap in earnings between men and women is high. The World Bank estimates that if women could have the same lifetime earnings as men, global wealth could increase by USD172 trillion, and human capital wealth could increase by about one fifth globally. Also, women globally are 9% less likely to have an account with a financial institution or mobile banking than men, and the gap is larger in poorer countries.
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Skills acquisition and entrepreneurial training programmes like the one offered by Wema Bank and SheCan could help increase the earning potential of women and make a significant contribution to raising Nigeria’s GDP. Analysts at PwC office in Lagos estimate that women account for 41% ownership of micro-businesses in Nigeria with 23 million female entrepreneurs operating within this segment. This places Nigeria among countries with the highest entrepreneurship rates globally. The high-level participation of female entrepreneurs in the country is however often driven mainly by necessity, which is the norm in emerging markets where there is insufficient formal employment. Imparting financial management and other personal skills could make the thousands of enterprises ran by Nigerian women more successful.
