World Bank says 40% Nigerian MSMEs are Owned by Women

A report by the World Bank has established that 40 per cent of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in Nigeria are owned by women, with most of the businesses growing at a remarkable rate.

In the World Bank latest report released on Wednesday, the global bank, through its Nigeria Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi), partnership with the Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN) and two commercial banks in Nigeria – Access Bank and Sterling Bank, established development of innovative credit solutions that expanded access to finance for women entrepreneurs.

The report summarizes key lessons, which include initial diagnostic; an assessment of demand for business loans; analysis of SMEs who applied to and/or received Access Bank cash flow loans, and administrative data from Access Bank’s cashflow loan programme.

“Our objective is to provide insights into the successes and challenges of disbursing loans to women-led SMEs (WSMEs) in Nigeria.

This research is being conducted in partnership with the World Bank’s Africa Gender Innovation Lab (GIL), which is also carrying out an impact evaluation that will capture how cashflow-based lending impacts male- vs female-led firms’ access to credit and business performance,” the report added.