3 days ago
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ABUJA – The Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry (WCCI) has launched WCCI Credit Cooperative Union (WCCI-CCU) towards fostering financial inclusion and empowerment for Nigerian women.
While speaking at the unveiling with the theme; “She Financial Inclusion” in Abuja on Wednesday, the Gambia High Commissioner to Nigeria, Amb. Muhammadu Musa Nsie commended the iniative saying it is a bold step to empowering the women folk in Nigeria.
“It is a good initiative and we all know that if you empower women, you empower the nation. This Cooperative Union is basically giving them more opportunity for them to access more credit, more loans, but also for them to come together and have a voice because Cooperatives is all about people coming together with the same interest for them to be able to grow as a body.
“So this is a good initiative and I just want to congratulate them for being able to come together with a common purpose so that they can grow themselves and grow their family,” he said.
Herecalled that the same initiative has been launched in The Gambia.
“We are here as one body and we want to just make sure that the financial inclusion covers everybody. So yes, it was launched in Gambia and my President is a proponent of inclusivity. He is a proponent of making sure that women’s voices are heard.”
He canvassed more enlightenment campaign for more women to benefit from the initiative.
“We have to communicate more. We have to make people understand more and we have to make sure that the benefits are better explained at all levels. And also we have to be able to make sure that the policy makers, the NGOs, the government officials understand and are willing and ready to promote the agenda of WCCI and women in general.
“So it must be a concerted effort. It’s just not saying it and writing them in the policy documents. We have to have that willful intent to be able to include women in all our development agenda. And once they are included, then I think we will be able to progress as a nation.
And like I said, women have become managers of financial resources that have to do with the family,” he stated.
Also speaking, the President of WCCI Global, Amb. Zainab Mohammed disclosed that the credit cooperative union which is being launched officially in Nigeria already has a platform in more than 16 African countries assuring that unveiling is for the upliftment of Nigerian women in their businesses
“Across the world, 70% of the 10 million women-owned SMEs are either unbanked or underbanked, representing a staggering $300 billion market gap. In Nigeria alone, 40% of MSMEs are owned by women, yet they struggle to access the capital they need to grow and thrive.
“These numbers tell a painful story, but today, with the unveiling of WCCI Credit Cooperative Union (WCCI-CCU), we begin to rewrite that story. WCCI-CCU is not just about providing interest-free loans. It is about restoring dignity. It is about giving women the tools to rise, to own, to produce, and to lead. Women have consistently proven their financial responsibility—globally, women-led businesses have loan repayment rates of just 1% to 1.5%, far below the 4% to 6% default rates seen elsewhere. When women borrow, they build. They do not waste,” she maintained.
Mrs. Ogola Onazi of the Izano Initiative Nigeria, commended the launch saying is a step in the right direction.
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