Wema Bank MD Calls for Innovative Finances to Address MSMEs Challenges

Ugo Aliogo

The Managing and Chief Executive Officer, Wema Bank, Moruf Oseni, has stressed the need to provide a platform to address fundamental issues impacting Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and Women in Nigeria, while also focusing on climate issues.

Oseni, spoke at the Bank’s Donor Roundtable, tagged: “Innovative Financing: Gender-lens and Climate Resilient Solution,” held in Lagos.

He bemoaned that MSMEs, despite being the largest employers of labour across the country, they continue to suffer from problems of access to capital, development of critical managerial skills, access to markets, logistics challenges, a slowing economy, and heightened inflation which ensures that most of them do not grow or even survive.

He said: “The world we face is a transformed one. The COVID-19 pandemic shut millions of people inside their homes and completely disrupted the global economy and the supply chain that underpins it. Global growth has been firmly below double digits for the last few years.

“Climate change have also unleashed a flood of migrants from the developing world into more developed countries. Pockets of conflict on the global stage have further exacerbated the growth problems we were already experiencing.” 

Co-Founder, Africa Sustainable Trade, Dr. AMA Onyerinma, revealed that the need to tackle the issues of gender inequality, noting that there is a challenge for women in entrepreneur.