NNEW, LCCI collaborate to deepen capacity of women entrepreneurs

The NECA’s Network Entrepreneurship Women (NNEW) and Lagos Chamber Commerce and Industry (LCCI) have collaborated to deepen the capacity of women entrepreneurs in Lagos to mark this year International Women’s Day.

“We are collaborating with organisations like LCCI and others to train more women in capacity building and entrepreneurship,” Modupe Oyekunle, president of NNEW, told BusinessDay at the event.

“More organisations are seeking partnerships with us and our own NNEW Women’s Microfinance Bank have to achieve our objective, which is to include women in all sectors of the economy and help them to take actions to accelerate gender parity and campaign against discrimination and all forms of abuse,” Oyekunle said.

Also speaking during the event, Olubunmi Osuntuyi, secretary general, LCCI said, “It is obvious that the collaboration is worth the while and mutually beneficial to both organisations. NNEW is a member of LCCI and that actually incited the collaboration in the first instance. And we have been able to identify areas of mutual benefits and tapped into it.”

Osuntuyi stated that the collaboration was beneficial for both the women and the organisations to achieve total capacity building on entrepreneurs.

Speaking on the theme, ‘Press for Progress’, she stated that the organisation had been doing a lot in terms of ensuring that the Nigerian woman continued to make an impact.

“But more collaborations are needed to achieve total capacity building in women.

“We feel that by pressing for progress, we will be taking initiatives like free health care and other things that would make an impact on women. This is something that we want organisations to collaborate with us in order to achieve,” Osuntuyi added.

The International Women’s Day, which is widely celebrated, is a time to reflect on progress made and also an opportunity to consider how to accelerate the 2030 Agenda which is to build momentum for effective implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and achieve gender equality, empower all women, girls and ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning.

BUNMI BAILEY