UK channels $100 million to women owned businesses in Nigeria

The British high Commissioner to Nigeria, Catriona Laing, Wednesday said the United Kingdom (UK) government has launched a $100 million program through the First Bank of Nigeria as direct funding to women owned enterprises in Nigeria.

Laing, made this known at the ongoing Gender and Inclusion summit organised by the Policy Innovation Center, (PIC), an initiative of the Nigeria economic Summit Group (NESG) in Abuja.

She said the investment is part of the implementation of the UK’ three es projects, namely educating girls, empowering women and ending violence against women and girls.

“The UK has worked on education for decades now particularly in the north-east Nigeria where we have supported 1.4 million additional girls going to school.

“On the empowerment side, we recently launched a hundred million programme through the first bank of Nigeria which will direct funding specifically to women owned enterprises,” she said.

Laing explained that gender rights are basic human rights and everyone is entitled to them but there are social norms, religious norms and behavioral norms which are used as excuses for not making progress on gender equality.

According to her, they were also digitising humanitarian services and cash transfers so that women can receive money directly into their bank account which gives them more empowerment.

Also, Mary Beth Leonard, United States Ambassador to Nigeria also called on Nigerian government and International partners to prioritise streamlining policies towards closing gender parity gaps.

She reiterated that the US government prioritise gender activity that was why it invests over $200 billion annually towards programming gender activity and equality globally.