Banking

Fidelity Bank partners ImpactHER to empower 1,052 entrepreneurs

Fidelity Bank has collaborated with ImpactHER to support 1,052 female entrepreneurs across the country to address the challenges they face in their small and medium-sized businesses.

Through diverse training on digital skills and direct business support, beneficiaries from two cohorts have been able to improve visibility for their businesses and consequently, increase sales.

The training, which commenced in January 2022, has had two cohorts that lasted for four weeks each, covering a myriad of topics such as Digital marketing, building your brand and selling online, etc.

The participants were also assisted in putting their businesses on Google Maps, thus allowing customers and the global market to easily find and transact business with them.

Speaking on the partnership, the Divisional Head, Product Development of Fidelity Bank, Osita Ede, said: “It has become imperative that female entrepreneurs in Africa are empowered to overcome the lack of digital literacy which impedes them from fully reaping the benefits of the digital transformation underway across Africa, and the world.

“We believe providing them this access will help them to thrive in their different businesses.”

Also speaking, the Founder of ImpactHER, Efe Ukala, said: “Statistically, women and girls are 25 per cent less likely to leverage digital technology for basic purposes, 4 times less likely to know how to programme computers and 13 times less likely to file for technology patents.

“This therefore highlights the importance of equipping African women with digital skills that could be leveraged to scale their businesses.

”Let’s not forget that data shows that Africa can add 180 billion dollars to its GDP by 2025 if we close the e-commerce digital gap.

“This intervention is critical as the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor for 2019/2020 highlighted that millions of women worldwide have started businesses over the last five years alone: the highest percentage of these women live in Africa, with approximately 26% of female adults engaged in entrepreneurial activity yet the World Bank confirms through data collected in ten African countries that on average, male-owned companies have six times more capital than female owned enterprises, resulting in monthly profits of female-owned enterprises that are, on average, 38% lower than male-owned businesses.”

While speaking on the importance of helping women with the skills to enhance their businesses, the Programs Director of ImpactHER, Clementina Uzogor, said: “At ImpactHER, it is our mission to ensure that we equip these women with tools for their businesses to thrive.”

She further appreciated Fidelity Bank for working with them to ensure the programme was successful and impactful.

“It is important to let you know that this is not the end of this training. We will be deepening our partnership with Fidelity to train and support 5,000 more women-led small and medium sized businesses in the country before the year runs out,” Uzogor stated.

One of the participants of the second cohort, Ms Akinyemi Oluronke, a fashion designer from Lagos, said: “I’ve been able to build an online presence, people now know my business exists and I get a lot of calls from people who found my business online. I am very grateful for this platform and the overall increase in sales I now enjoy.”

The Star