The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has given a sum of N159.21 billion to 330,128 female under the Targeted Credit Facility (TCF) designed to support household and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
This was stated by the Governor of the apex bank, Godwin Emefiele, at the ‘Gender Equality Today for a Sustainable Tomorrow’ event in Abuja.
According to him, the bank has supported women with other intervention funds such as AGSMEIS, MSMEDF and other schemes in addition to issuing gender-mandated regulations to pave way for gender diversity and inclusiveness at the top management levels in the banks.
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What the CBN is saying:
Emefiele noted that the apex bank, under his watch, had demonstrated its commitment to diversity and inclusiveness through designing and implementing a wide variety of initiatives, programmes and interventions to promote entrepreneurship, reduce poverty, generate employment and deepen financial inclusion for women.
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He said, “Females have benefitted hugely from the bank’s intervention programmes, such as the Agribusiness Small and Medium Enterprise Investment Scheme (AGSMEIS) and the COVID-19 TCF.
“Specifically, out of N134.67 billion disbursed to 37,273 AGSMEIS beneficiaries, as of January 2022, 33% (N44.1 billion) went to 12,511 female beneficiaries. Similarly, out of N349.51 billion disbursed to 712,442 total beneficiaries under the TCF, 45% which was N159.21 billion went to 330,128 female beneficiaries.
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“The MSME Development Fund (MSMEDF) was designed to allocate at least 60% of the fund to women and women-owned enterprises of which 60.3% of the 229,579 beneficiaries are women. Furthermore, out of the 211,306 financial statements currently registered in the collateral registry, 92,091, representing 43.6% were female borrowers.”