UN, FG, Others Partner on Procurement Opportunities for Female Entrepreneurs

Kuni Tyessi in Abuja

The federal government has gone into partnership with the United Nations to launch a project to give women more visibility.

The project focuses on inculcating gender responsive procurement processes which would serve as panacea for advancing economic empowerment to women entrepreneurs.

During the launch of the project with the theme: “Women’s Empowerment through Affirmative Procurement Reform in Nigeria,” the Minister of Women Affairs, Paullen Tallen said the project would promote women inclusion, gender equality and empowerment, inclusive economic growth and national development through enhanced access to public procurement opportunities for women entrepreneurs.

Represented by the Director overseeing the office of the Permanent Secretary, Idris Mohammed, Tallen noted challenges that had limited access to procurement opportunities for women entrepreneurs to include limited information around the drafting of bids been tackled.

In the three years project with Kaduna and Lagos as pilot states, Tallen stated that others were lack of technical capacities to execute contracts, access to information and networks to respond to procurement calls and long delays in payment from government procuring entities amongst others.

“Investing in capacity strengthening for women entrepreneurs to benefit from public procurement alone, would not guarantee their economic empowerment.

“The launch of this project resonates with our advocacy on advancing economic empowerment for women entrepreneurs through enhanced access to public and private procurement opportunities.

“We must first address existing structural barriers that women entrepreneurs face and accelerate action to promote gender-responsiveness across procurement processes, practices and institutions, so that change can happen within a reasonable time frame,” she said.

The UN Women Country Representative to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Ms. Beatrice Eyong, said the project would aide in empowering women and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“The project launch focuses on inculcating gender responsive procurement processes, as a panacea for advancing economic empowerment to women entrepreneurs,” she said.

She explained further that the project supports reform and institutional strengthening to improve women led businesses access to public procurement and the development of gender responsive procurement initiatives.

The project was supported by the African Development Bank, UN Women and funded by Women’s Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi).