The Nationwide Info Expertise Growth Company (NITDA) has mentioned it’s working in direction of bridging the prevailing funding hole for feminine startup founders in Nigeria by way of its Nationwide Gender Digital Inclusion Technique (NGDIS).
The Company acknowledged this because it offered the NGDIS on the United Nations 69th Session of the Fee on the Standing of Ladies (CSW69), the place it highlighted efforts to shut the gender digital divide within the nation.
Talking on the occasion, Particular Assistant to the Director Normal of NITDA on Strategic Partnerships, Iklima Salihu, offered the technique, emphasizing NITDA’s position in driving digital transformation and creating alternatives for ladies and ladies to actively take part within the digital economic system.
“Recognizing the position of ladies in Nigeria’s innovation and entrepreneurship panorama, the technique emphasizes entry to funding, mentorship, and technical help for female-led startups, leveraging the Nigeria Startup Act to extend monetary and institutional help for ladies within the tech ecosystem,” he mentioned.
Digital literacy for ladies
He famous that the framework additionally prioritizes digital literacy, entrepreneurship, security, and gender-responsive insurance policies to speed up ladies’s participation in Nigeria’s rising digital economic system.
- In keeping with him, the NGDIS is constructed on 5 core pillars that may drive ladies’s entry, participation, and management within the digital ecosystem.
- It seeks to broaden digital literacy and abilities by making certain at the least 40% feminine participation in all nationwide coaching initiatives.
“With 58% of younger ladies globally experiencing on-line harassment, the NGDIS prioritizes on-line security and cybersecurity consciousness,” he added.
Implementing the NGDIS
Talking on the occasion, the Honourable Minister of Ladies Affairs, Honourable Imaan Sulaiman, FSI, underscored the pressing want for motion in tackling gender disparities in digital entry.
She revealed alarming statistics that show the stark actuality of the digital divide in Nigeria, highlighting that 68% of Nigerian ladies don’t personal smartphones, making it troublesome for them to entry on-line companies and financial alternatives.
She pressured that this divide extends past entry, as ladies and kids face vital on-line dangers, together with cyber harassment, digital gender-based violence, and exclusion from the quickly rising tech-driven economic system.
- She known as for the swift implementation of the NGDIS 2024-2027, which seeks to take away the structural limitations that forestall ladies from totally partaking within the digital economic system.
- She emphasised the necessity for sturdy authorized frameworks that may speed up motion in selling digital literacy, offering protected on-line areas, and empowering ladies to thrive in technology-driven industries.
- She reaffirmed that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda is dedicated to creating an inclusive digital future the place no girl or baby is left behind.
She urged all stakeholders to work collectively to rework digital entry and safety for ladies and kids, making expertise a device for empowerment fairly than exclusion.
What you need to know
In keeping with the Financial institution of Trade (BOI), Nigeria leads the world in ladies’s entrepreneurial exercise, with 23 million feminine entrepreneurs accounting for 41% of the nation’s micro-businesses.
Nevertheless, entry to finance stays a major barrier for a lot of of those ladies.
The Financial institution famous that regardless of the spectacular variety of ladies entrepreneurs in Nigeria, many battle to entry the funding wanted to develop their companies.
