Vice President Kashim Shettima has said Nigeria cannot achieve its ambition of becoming a $1 trillion economy without ensuring that millions of women have access to formal financial services and full participation in economic activities.
Shettima made the declaration at the Second National Gender Inclusion Conference, #ShesIncluded 2026, held in Abuja with the theme, “Designing for Delivery: Financing, Systems and Scale for Women’s Economic Transformation.”
The Vice President, represented by the Special Adviser to the President on Special Duties in the Office of the Vice President, Dr Aliyu Umar, said women’s economic inclusion should be treated as a core national growth strategy rather than charity or welfare.
He said Nigeria’s economic output could increase significantly if women were able to participate more fully in the economy.
According to Shettima, the Federal Government is shifting its gender inclusion agenda from policy declarations and pilot programmes to measurable delivery, financing and nationwide implementation.
He challenged state governors and local government chairmen to ensure that federal policies and programmes translate into tangible improvements for women operating businesses, farms and markets across the country.
The Vice President urged governments to measure the success of women-focused programmes by the number of businesses expanded, jobs created and households strengthened, rather than simply by the number of women enrolled.
“Inclusion must be measured by changed lives, not attendance registers,” he said.
Shettima also called on financial institutions, fintech companies, investors and development partners to stop treating gender-focused financing as concessionary support, stressing that women represent a significant economic market with enormous potential for savings, investment, enterprise and innovation.
He noted that only 47 per cent of Nigerian women currently have formal financial accounts, compared with 58 per cent of men.
The Vice President said the gap represents millions of female entrepreneurs, farmers and business owners whose economic potential remains constrained by limited access to affordable finance, insurance and other formal financial services.
“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 asked.
Shettima described women’s economic inclusion as one of the most important growth strategies available to Nigeria, stressing that the country could not afford to leave women behind.
He said the Federal Government was implementing initiatives aimed at translating its women’s inclusion agenda into concrete economic opportunities.
Among them, he cited the National Income Activation Initiative, which is designed to provide skills, capital and market access to women and young people across Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones.
He also highlighted the Women in Energy Partnership with the World Bank, which seeks to position women to participate more actively in Nigeria’s energy transition.
The Vice President, however, cautioned against relying solely on national averages to measure progress, noting that such figures could conceal continued exclusion among women in rural and underserved communities.
He urged participants at the conference to develop bankable projects, measurable commitments and practical solutions capable of delivering results.
“Delivery means that this gathering produces bankable projects, measurable commitments and implementable solutions. Every serious commitment made here should carry three things: an owner, a metric, and a deadline,” he said.
Shettima reaffirmed the Federal Government’s commitment to Project #ShesIncluded and the Aso Accord for Economic and Financial Inclusion, launched in April 2024 as a national framework for expanding economic participation.
He said the country must move from pilot programmes to scale, and from policy rhetoric to measurable accountability.
Women Affairs and Social Development Minister, Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim, said the Nigeria for Women Programme Scale-Up, implemented in partnership with the World Bank, would expand an existing economic empowerment structure to reach 4.5 million women through 300,000 Women Affinity Groups nationwide.
She disclosed that the first phase had already mobilised more than 560,000 women into over 26,000 groups.
The women, she said, had collectively saved more than N4.9 billion from their own resources and accessed about N15.6 billion in livelihood grants.
Deputy Chief of Staff to the President, Senator Ibrahim Hadejia, also identified finance, market access, technology, land and connectivity among the major barriers limiting women’s economic participation.
The conference brought together government officials, financial institutions, development partners and private-sector stakeholders to discuss practical strategies for expanding financing, strengthening systems and scaling economic opportunities for women across Nigeria.