Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA), and The International Labour Organisation (ILO), have called for increased support from both public and private sector players for women entrepreneurs to enable them to contribute to the country’s economy.
The associations made the call at the launch of Women’s Entrepreneurship – WE Self-Check Action Plan in Lagos, where they pointed out the need for the government and major actors in the economy to be intentional in policy-making that promotes women entrepreneurship and gender equality.
Adewale-Smatt Oyerinde, the director-general of NECA, said the employers’ organisation was committed to supporting women in business and would further work with the NECA’s Network of Entrepreneurial Women (NNEW) to achieve the overall objective of the WE Self-Check action plan.
Also, Obiageli Nwobi, the ILO facilitator, said the female gender was disadvantaged in many ways and there was a need for policies that support their struggles.
“There’s a need to have a comprehensive survey on what the women require to excel in their respective lines of business,” Nwobi said.
The WE Self-Check is an action plan that highlights recommendations from months of research on how women can be supported and mentored to grow their businesses and further add value to the nation’s economy.
The objective of the research project tagged “promoting gender equality and formalisation through women’s entrepreneurship development in Nigeria” is to enable NECA and NNEW adopt gender-responsive measures to better target and serve women entrepreneurs. It was also aimed at widening women’s representation in corporate and business organisations through the We-Check self-assessment tool.
Some of the recommendations of the action are that NECA and NNEW will ensure organisation-wide sex-desegregated data on members are collected through relevant forms and stored in the NECA/NNEW database within the next three months.
