Why entrepreneurship is needed for a thriving economy
Women have been urged to take to entrepreneurship as it is the driving tool for a successful and thriving economy. The call was made by the vice chairperson, Abuja Chapter of Necas Network of Entrepreneurial Women (NNEW), Mrs Abiola M. Olumodeji, at the Financial Management and Export Opportunities programme for female entrepreneurs held in Abuja […]
Women have been urged to take to entrepreneurship as it is the driving tool for a successful and thriving economy.
The call was made by the vice chairperson, Abuja Chapter of Necas Network of Entrepreneurial Women (NNEW), Mrs Abiola M. Olumodeji, at the Financial Management and Export Opportunities programme for female entrepreneurs held in Abuja recently.
“Entrepreneurship is the driving tool for a successful and thriving economy. Right now you can see that we are in a recession because our focus has been on high priced education and we are suffering because people don‘t want to go to the farm. So, we need to re-orientate people,” she said.
One of the speakers at the event, the Director, Strategic Partnership and Liaison, SMEDAN, Dr Friday Okpara, said women could contribute a lot in the boardroom.
“This programme is to expose women to see how they can improve on what they are doing. So they can see how they can enhance their product to meet international standard.
“We in SMEDAN can assist them and those in other agencies are ready to work with them particularly now that government is talking about diversifying,” Okpara said.
The president of NNEW, Abuja Chapter, Mrs Omololami Ajani, said the programme was designed to teach women financial management and cash flows as well as getting experts to demystify the issue of access to loan for women entrepreneurs.
One of the participants, Mrs Deborah Jonathan, said she saw a lot of opportunities for women to go into exportation of products. “Also, we were taught how to manage our cash flow in our businesses and how to access loans from banks,” she said.
The Executive Director, Technical, Nicon Insurance Ltd, Mr Akinola Ale, urged SMEs to insure their businesses to avoid waste.
“In this period of recession, we cannot afford to allow for wastages, so whatever can be done to reduce waste is important and insurance is one of such medium,” he said
“Insurance is so cheap that with N2,000 or N5,000, you can get some insurance policies that you can be rest assured when you are operating your business, you are being backed by their services,” Ale said.