Centre urges Tinubu to implement economic empowerment policy for women

The development Research and Projects Centre (dRPC) and stakeholders in gender and women’s empowerment space have called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to implement the National Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) policy signed by the immediate past president as a national strategy to unlock the potentials of Nigerian women and ensure national growth and development.

The call was made by dRPC Director of Gender, Dr Plangsat Dayil Bitrus, during the formal validation of the roadmap to foster key national conditions for women’s entrepreneurship development and enterprises formalization in Nigeria, organized by the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) in collaboration with International Labour Organization (ILO) in Abuja.

Dr Dayil disclosed that the National WEE policy recommended eight major targets for Nigeria to attain by the year 2028.

These targets according to her will make Nigeria legal and judicial friendly to gender and women’s economic empowerment and place the nation amongst the most developed in terms of conditions, regulations and reforms aimed to improve access to finances, training, opportunities, and economic growth for the women population.

“It is obvious that for Nigeria to achieve its potential in economic growth, recommendations of the WEE and NGP alongside other national inclusion policies must be implemented at the national and sub-national levels,” she said.

She said formal registration of women businesses remains the only intervention to give financial independence, bargaining power, and self-esteem to women-run businesses, while increasing their exposure to local and international markets, and access to digital infrastructure and platforms.