The Nigeria chapter of the African Women Empowerment Programme (AWEP) is set to train women on the opportunities in the export sector at its annual general meeting and conference.
AWEP, focused on women’s empowerment for export through clustering and collaborations seeks to launch Women Entrepreneurs into the international market.
The meeting themed “Launch Out Towards Sustainability”, the conference is scheduled to take place at the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Ikeja.
Speaking at a press conference to announce the event, President, AWEP, Nigerian Chapter, Oluyemisi Ogundipe, said the conference is basically to help women reach the highest in their chosen field.
“Small and medium scale businesses across the world contribute up to eight per cent of the GDP, hence we need to build women-owned businesses to meet up with exports. When a woman is empowered, she has a voice,” she said.
She further noted that AWEP is also a business support organisation operating in clusters across the six geo-political of the country, she encouraged women to form partnerships that would empower them.
“COVID-19 affected a lot of businesses and they have not been able to get back to where they were, hence this conference will equip our women entrepreneurs and give them encouragement,” she added.
On the theme, Ogundipe noted: “Our mandate is to ensure that women are empowered. We have trained over 10,000 women from our different mediums both online and offline. What we have not been able to ascertain is the level of sustainability hence ‘Launch Out’.”
She explained that Launch Out is for those who want to start, those who have started and stopped and those who want to go on a large scale.
Running a business is expensive and so we want to be there with products and assistance to help them launch out,” she added.
She also noted that to be fully involved in export, the government needed to make ease of business policies that aid women’s empowerment.
“We need to export our products that are in demand effectively. We need Nigeria Customs to ease things. We need NAFDAC and SON to ensure that we are keeping to standard and can match anywhere in the world,” she said.
On her part, Vice President, of the North-East region, Ramotu Ibrahim, noted that the conference will further enlighten women who are grassroots farmers and bring them to the limelight.
