The Nigerian Government has challenged banks, fintech companies and other financial institutions to unlock Nigeria’s estimated $14.8 billion annual gender financing opportunity by redesigning financial products to better serve women.
The Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim, made the call on Wednesday at the Second National Gender Inclusion Conference, SheIsIncluded 2026, in Abuja.
The conference was themed, “Designing for Delivery: Financing, Systems and Scale for Women’s Economic Transformation.”
The SheIsIncluded Initiative’s Aso Accord on Financial and Economic Inclusion was signed on April 25, 2024, as a strategic framework for addressing gaps in economic and financial inclusion.
Sulaiman-Ibrahim said the challenge of achieving economic transformation for Nigerian women was not a lack of ambition, but inadequate design of systems to meet their realities.
“The difficulty has been the design,” she said, noting that financial systems were largely structured around collateral requirements, while women generally have less access to conventional forms of collateral.
She said the challenge informed the design of the World Bank-supported Nigeria for Women Project (NFWP) Scale-Up, which organises women into Women Affinity Groups where they save, lend to one another and grow their businesses.
According to her, the Scale-Up has expanded its reach to 4.5 million women through 300,000 groups nationwide, following the mobilisation of more than 560,000 women into over 26,000 groups during its first phase.
She said the women had saved more than N4.9 billion of their own resources and accessed about N15.6 billion in livelihood grants.
The minister urged banks, payment operators and other financial institutions to redesign their models to bridge the country’s multi-billion-dollar gender financing gap.
She said the ministry was prepared to open its programme pipelines to institutions willing to test financial products at scale.
“To our banks, guarantors and payment operators, I would respectfully invite you to design for the woman who exists rather than the borrower our models were built for.
“The International Finance Corporation estimates that closing Nigeria’s gender financing gap could unlock some $14.8 billion annually. That is not a social return. It is a commercial one, and it remains unclaimed,” she said.
Sulaiman-Ibrahim proposed alternative-data credit scoring, guarantee-backed lending that recognises group liability and low-cost interoperable payment systems that can operate on women’s existing mobile devices.
She also urged state governments to co-finance and localise national programmes, while calling on development partners to maintain a coordinated map of interventions to ensure resources reach underserved women.
“In a period of contracting global development financing, coordination is how we protect coverage,” she added.
Shettima seeks measurable commitments
Vice President Kashim Shettima, represented by his Special Adviser on General Duties, Dr Aliyu Modibbo Umar, said every serious commitment to women’s economic empowerment should have an owner, a measurable target and a deadline.
He said such commitments must be visible, tracked and reviewed, adding that successful initiatives would be recognised through the country’s first National Gender and Financial Inclusion Awards.
According to him, effective delivery requires financing and therefore demands greater involvement from financial institutions, fintech companies, investors and development partners.
He said while government could establish the rules, the private sector would provide the capital, technology and discipline required to achieve scale.
The Technical Adviser to the President on Economic and Financial Inclusion, Dr Nurudeen Abubakar Zauro, said the economy could not reach its full potential when productive capital failed to reach productive citizens.
He said credible estimates indicated that national output could be as much as 23 per cent higher with greater equality in women’s economic participation.
Women’s participation in capital market remains low — SEC
At a panel session on regulatory reforms to promote women’s financial inclusion, the Director-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Dr Emomotimi Agama, represented by Ojone Kabir, said women remained underrepresented in Nigeria’s capital market.
She said women accounted for between 12 and 15 per cent of participation in corporate institutions, while their representation in executive positions was below seven per cent.
“Women accessing capital to raise funds is below five per cent,” she added.
Kabir said entry requirements into the capital market were being reviewed to favour women and small and medium-sized enterprises.
She encouraged women to explore crowdfunding platforms within the capital market, noting that they offered significant opportunities for networking and visibility.
She acknowledged that the capital market had several compliance requirements but urged women not to be discouraged from participating.
The Nigeria for Women Project was originally approved on June 27, 2018, with a $100 million credit from the International Development Association (IDA). It was designed to improve women’s livelihoods by supporting their participation in economic activities and businesses.
The project also seeks to provide women with skills and resources for sustainable economic activities, thereby strengthening their contributions to household incomes and community development.
In 2024, the Federal Government appealed to the World Bank to extend the deadline for the $100 million Nigeria for Women Project.
