By Business A.M
The World Bank Group said it has approved a loan of $500 million to help the Nigerian government strengthen its drive for women’s empowerment.
Business A.M gathered that the loan is the second to be approved by the international financial institution to the Bola Tinubu administration following a loan of $750 million approved on June 9, 2023, to improve the country’s power sector.
The recently approved $500 million is a scale-up financing for Nigeria for Women Programme Scale Up (NFWP-SU), which was initially approved on June 27, 2018, with $100m financing. It is expected to support the Nigerian government to invest in improving the livelihoods of women in Nigeria.
The World Bank noted that the NFWP-SU will help to ensure better economic opportunities for women, which is essential for addressing gender inequality; guaranteeing better education, health, and nutrition outcomes for families; and building women’s and communities’ resilience to climate change.
It further stressed the need for the government to address issues that inhibit women’s economic empowerment and hinder inclusive, low-carbon, and resilient economic growth, emphasising that women’s empowerment is essential to their ability to build resilience to climate change and, by extension, the resilience of their households and communities.
Commenting on the programme, Shubham Chaudhuri, the World Bank country director for Nigeria, said, “We have seen promising outcomes from the parent NFWP which has helped to create economic opportunities for thousands of rural women through the Women Affinity Groups. NFWP’s model is helping to improve livelihood opportunities for women and enhancing their capacity to adapt to climate change and to participate in local administrations for policymaking related to community empowerment.
Chaudhuri added that bridging the gender gap in key economic sectors could yield gains of between $9.3 billion and $22.9 billion,while raising optimism that the scale-up will help Nigeria to move closer to bridging this gap.
Speaking in the same light, Michael Ilesanmi, the task team leader for Nigeria for Women Project, said the programme aims to mobilize poor and vulnerable women into different institutions and, using the institutional platforms, link them to markets as well as financial and non-financial services.
“Through participation in Women Affinity Groups, project beneficiaries build social capital that can then be leveraged to access financial, political, and economic capital–thus leading to both social and economic empowerment,” Ilesanmi stated.
