Over 5,000 women entrepreneurs  receive  training on sustainable business initiatives

From Victor Duruamaku  Owerri

The Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) has trained 5,230 women entrepreneurs in the country on sustainable business initiatives from January 2018 to March 2022.

The  Executive Director, Mr Ezra Yakusak, disclosed this  at a workshop for women entrepreneurs organised by the Council in Owerri on Tuesday.

Represented by the Council’s Trade Promotion Advisor in Imo, Mr Anthony Ajuruchi, the executive director  said that the trainings were organised by NEPC’S Division of Women in Export in collaboration with SheTrades, a free international platform for women entrepreneurs.

According to him , ” the initiative was borne out of Federal Government’s appreciation for the  contributions of women in business to Nigeria’s economic growth as a way of  promoting gender equality and poverty eradication.”

He added that the workshop, organised in collaboration with the United Bank of Africa ( UBA)  and the Nigeria Incentive-based Risk Sharing system for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) was aimed at repositioning women in both government and private sectors.

” We are grateful for this collaboration with NIRSAL and UBA and we hope that this is just the beginning of many of such collaborations to come for the benefit of our women.

” NEPC, through the SheTrades in Common Wealth project, will continue to train more women entrepreneurs as a way of encouraging them and developing the potentials of Nigeria’s non oil sector “, he said.

Also speaking, Miss Sarah Kwamegh, a staff of  NEPC’s Division of Women in Export, said that the Council signed on to the International Trade Centre’s SheTrades initiative in July 2016, with the objective of comnecting 200,000 Nigerian women to the global market by year 2021.

Kwamegh, a Resource Person at the workshop, added that in October 2021, the goal was achieved, with the NEPC as  the host institution for SheTrades Nigeria hub.

She called on women entrepreneurs in the country to embrace the initiative so as to get access to global business opportunities for national development