…launches four platforms to bridge gender finance gap, empower women-led businesses By Johnbosco Agbakwuru ABUJA – THE Vice President, Senator Kashim Shettima, on Wednesday, warned that Nigeria cannot reach a $1 trillion economy without women’s full economic participation, and has launched four strategic platforms to close the gender gap in financial inclusion and convert women’s economic potential into enterprises, jobs, and sustainable growth. At the Second National Gender Inclusion Conference, #SheIsIncluded 2026, held at the presidential Villa, Abuja, the Vice President warned and outlined steps to shift women from financial exclusion into productive economic participation. Speakers at the event including Senator Shettima; the Deputy Chief of Staff to the President Ibrahim Hadeija; the President’s Technical Adviser on Economic and Financial Inclusion, Dr. Nurudeen Abubakar Zauro; and Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development Imaan Sulaiman‑Ibrahim — presented the measures. The conference with the theme: ” Designing for Delivery: From Financial Inclusion to Economic Transformation for the Nigerian Woman,” was organised by the Presidential Committee on Economic Inclusion in the Office of the Vice President. The Vice President, who was represented by Dr. Aliyu Modibbo, warned that the administration’s $1 trillion economic goal will remain unattainable as long as women continue to face structural barriers to finance, markets, skills, and other opportunities. According to him: ““We have set our sights on a one-trillion-dollar economy. But what kind of economy can we build if half of our people cannot participate fully in creating it?” He said only 47 per cent of Nigerian women had formal financial accounts, compared with 58 per cent of men, describing the disparity as millions of women whose businesses lacked access to affordable capital and whose entrepreneurial potential remained largely untapped. Shettima said evidence showed that Nigeria’s economic output could be significantly higher if women participated equally in the economy, insisting that investing in women was a growth strategy, not an act of charity. “The question is no longer whether we can afford to invest in women; it is whether we can afford not to. Our answer is no!” he declared. He said the Federal Government was moving from policy declarations to an “architecture of delivery” through initiatives designed to connect women and young people to skills, capital, markets and emerging economic opportunities. Among the initiatives, he cited the National Income Activation Initiative and the Women in Energy Partnership with the World Bank, which he said was positioning women to participate as entrepreneurs, engineers, investors and leaders in the energy transition. The Vice President cautioned, however, against measuring progress through national averages alone, saying aggregate figures could conceal the continued exclusion of women in rural communities. He challenged policymakers and programme implementers to identify who was being reached, who remained excluded, what interventions were working and who should be held accountable when programmes failed. “That is the difference between announcing inclusion and governing for it,” he said. Hadeija at the conference, said the #SheIsIncluded initiative must move beyond an annual campaign and become an enduring national delivery framework for women’s economic prosperity. He said the financial exclusion of women represented productive capacity that Nigeria could no longer afford to leave idle. “These inequalities represent productive capacity our economy is yet to activate,” Hadeija said. “Every viable woman-led enterprise that cannot obtain financing is investment lost, and every young woman with skills but no pathway to formal employment or entrepreneurial opportunity represents human capital underused. “A nation aspiring for a one-trillion-dollar economy cannot afford to leave the productive capacity of half its population idle.” Hadeija called for stronger coordination among federal institutions, state governments, financial institutions, the private sector, development partners and civil society to dismantle barriers to women’s access to finance, markets, technology, land, insurance, skills and connectivity. He said the Federal Government would provide policy coherence, states would be expected to drive last-mile implementation, while financial institutions must redesign products around the realities of women. “Our success will be measured not by the partnerships we announce, but by the problems those partnerships solve,” he said. Zauro provided the clearest outline of the government’s new delivery strategy, announcing four platforms aimed at transforming financial inclusion into measurable economic participation. He ident
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