Vice President Kashim Shettima has said Nigeria’s ambition to build a $1 trillion economy cannot be achieved without the full participation of women in the nation’s economic development.
Shettima stated this on Wednesday at the Second National Gender Inclusion Conference, tagged “SheIsIncluded 2026,” held at the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Represented by the Special Adviser to the President on General Duties, Aliyu Modibbo Umar, the Vice President said Nigeria’s economic ambition would remain out of reach if women continued to face structural barriers to finance, markets, skills and other opportunities.
The conference, organised by the Presidential Committee on Economic Inclusion in the Office of the Vice President, was themed “Designing for Delivery: From Financial Inclusion to Economic Transformation for the Nigerian Woman.”
Shettima said the SheIsIncluded initiative must move beyond an annual campaign and evolve into an enduring national delivery framework capable of driving sustainable economic prosperity for Nigerian women.
The Federal Government also unveiled four strategic platforms aimed at bridging the gender gap in financial inclusion and expanding women’s access to economic opportunities.
The platforms identified by stakeholders are digital trust infrastructure, data for accountability, blended finance, and the National Income Activation Initiative.
The Minister of Women Affairs disclosed that the Nigeria for Women Programme Scale-Up had expanded its women’s affinity-group model to 4.5 million women organised into 300,000 groups nationwide.
The development, she said, was part of ongoing efforts to strengthen women’s access to finance, markets, skills and other resources needed to grow sustainable businesses and improve household incomes.
A major highlight of the conference was the unveiling of the National Income Activation Initiative, implemented in partnership with the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs.
The initiative is designed to translate financial inclusion into actual income by connecting women to skills acquisition, markets, digital tools, finance and business support.
The stakeholders said the new platforms were expected to strengthen the Federal Government’s efforts to move from financial inclusion as a policy objective to measurable economic transformation for Nigerian women.
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