By ABBAS BAMALLI

The Minister of Women Affairs, Hajiya Imaan Suleiman, says the North-West region has the highest rate of financial exclusion, as 47 per cent of its population lacks access to formal and informal financial services.

The minister disclosed this at the launching of a two-day North-West Governors’ meeting on Nigeria For Women Project (NFWP) Scale-Up Summit on Tuesday in Katsina.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the theme of the summit is ‘Empowering Her: Advancing women’s economic and empowerment through regional collaboration’.

According to her, data from the Enhancing Financial Innovation and Access (EFInA’s) Access to Financial Services in Nigeria (A2F) survey in 2023 had revealed the deeply unsettling reality situation.

Sulaiman said, “This gap among the adults limits women’s ability to build resilience, invest in livelihoods and escape poverty.

“This highlights the severity of the exclusion and reinforces the urgency of scaling gender responsive interventions like the NFWP.”

The minister also said that 32 states were involved in the NFWP-SU, which demonstrated widespread political buy-in and unified vision for inclusive national development.

“It also reflects the strength of the federating structure, as women’s empowerment is no longer a peripheral concern but a national priority.

“Notably, Katsina and Ekiti States have begun community-level implementation while Women Affinity Groups (WAGs) formation is underway,’’ Suleiman said

She explained that the WAGs were the foundational units for collective savings, livelihoods, and social transformation.

Suleiman added, “These groups have already proven to increase household income by up to 30 per cent and reduce dependence on informal credit sources by over 40 percent cent in pilot states.”

The minister further said that the project’s task team was working with the World Bank, with the view to co-opting more states and scale up the implementation in at least eight additional states by the end of July.

In his remarks, Gov. Dikko Radda, said that the project would benefit 33,000 wards from the three local governments of Katsina, Funtua and Daura.

He expressed gratitude to the World Bank, the ministry, and other stakeholders for organising the summit.

He said, “Your commitment in advancing the gender equality and women’s empowerment is not only commendable, but essential for the future of our nation.”

Radda said that the women voices and their potentials had hitherto been overlooked and put under banner.

“But let me be clear that excluding women from development is not only unjust, but economically unwise,

“Because the evidence is overwhelming when women are empowered with access to education, training, finance and decision making, platforms, families, prior, economies grow and communities become more resilient and peaceful,’’ he said.

Earlier, the World Bank Country Director, Mr. Matthew Verghis, represented by Mr. Michael Ilesanmi, said empowering women was the key to transforming the Nigeria economy.

“Data from the world bank suggests that if we can address some of the barriers to women’s economic empowerment, we could unlock between nine to 27 billion US dollars into our GDP.

“In two and a half years of implementing Nigeria for women project, we are able to improve the livelihood of 460,000 women across six states, in 18 local governments,” he said. (NAN)

• PHOTO: Participants at the launching of a two-day North-West Governors’ meeting on Nigeria For Women Project (NFWP) Scale-Up Summit on Tuesday in Katsina