AXA Mansard Empowers 200 ‘Female SMEs
Mansard, a member of AXA has empowered 200 female Small and Medium Enterprises with financial literacy and digital business skills.
In collaboration with SME 100 Africa, the two-day training, which was held in Lagos, is part of AXA’s lined-up programmes to commemorate this year’s International Women’s Day.
In addition to the series of women empowerment Initiatives, AXA Mansard has been training female SMEs over the past few years as part of its plan to Increase financial and digital literacy amongst female-owned SMEs In Nigeria.
Speaking, Head of Marketing AXA Mansard, Olusesan Ogunyooye, said the training was aimed at empowering female SME owners with skills to improve business output and position them for the increasing economic opportunities available in an increasingly digital marketplace.
Ogunyooye noted that the move was in line with AXA Mansard’s sustainability agenda, explaining that the company was convinced that support for women through its inclusive protection programmes was pivotal to its purpose of acting for human progress by protecting what matters and its mission of moving from being a payer to a partner.
He further said that focusing on digital skills was important because the company realised the importance of digital skills to the growth of the SME sector in Nigeria and wanted to ensure that women were empowered enough to be a consequential part of that growth.
“It’s almost trite to say that SMEs are the engine for economic growth, especially in developing countries like Nigeria, where over 45 million adults are business owners. What needs to be continually discussed is how Nigeria is going to unlock that potential for economic development and how much of that potential will be unlocked by women and for women.”
“For us at AXA Mansard, we are aware that digital will play a major role in unlocking these current opportunities and Nigeria’s economic future. So, to ensure that women are equally represented in unlocking these future potentials, that’s why we have collaborated with SME 100 Africa to support them in developing the required skills”.