Nigeria poised to tackle women’s barriers in cross-border trade

The Nigerian government and development partners have launched the Making Trade Work for Women (MTWW) initiative to address barriers facing women in cross-border trade.

The initiative aims to address limited access to finance and markets, unclear trade procedures, harassment, and inadequate border facilities.

Implemented by the Centre for International Studies and Cooperation (CECI) and TradeMark Africa (TMA), and funded by Global Affairs Canada, the initiative covers Nigeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Togo.

Speaking at the launch in Lagos on Thursday, Dayo Okewole, representing the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, said the project would help address the challenges preventing women from benefiting fully from cross-border trade.

Mr Okewole said women account for more than 70 per cent of informal cross-border traders and make up a substantial share of small and medium-sized enterprises.

Despite this, women still face limited access to trade finance, border security concerns, and gaps in digital and trade literacy, according to Mr Okewole.

“Women are the bedrock of our economic architecture in Nigeria,” he said, adding that the project would support efforts to make trade more inclusive and accessible.

He said the ministry is committed to improving the regulatory environment, reducing bureaucratic bottlenecks, and promoting transparency in implementing trade policies.

Mr Okewole identified policy inclusivity, digital skills and access to finance and markets as key areas of intervention.

He said the initiative would help women-led businesses improve digital literacy, integrate e-commerce into their operations, and build the skills needed to expand their markets.

He also highlighted proposals to improve facilities for women traders in border communities, including a mini-market where traders could exchange goods without making repeated journeys across the border.

According to him, a visit to the Seme border revealed that some facilities for women traders were unused, partly because of inadequate awareness.

“We are happy to see some of the steps that have already been taken by the Customs Command in addressing some of the challenges in that area,” he said, adding that better information would help women take advantage of existing facilities and procedures.

Kwamina Ekremet, TMA’s Country Director for Ghana and Anglophone West Africa, said the initiative was intended to make trade more efficient, inclusive and responsive to women’s needs.

Citing the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Sahel and West Africa Club, Mr Ekremet said West Africa’s intra-regional food trade goes unrecorded in official statistics, at about $10 billion annually.

He said women play a central role in this trade but often face barriers that make their businesses more costly, difficult and sometimes unsafe to operate.

“Our challenge, therefore, is not simply to encourage women to trade formally. It is to make formal trade accessible, affordable, predictable and worthwhile,” he said.

Mr Ekremet said the programme, which runs from 2024 to 2028, aims to directly benefit 80,000 people, at least 70 per cent of whom will be women traders.

It also seeks to benefit about 20,000 additional traders indirectly and reach more than 50,000 people through sensitisation.

The programme aims to increase participating women’s incomes by 40 per cent and raise the number of women traders using sustainable practices by 50 per cent.

Mr Ekremet said engagements with border officials, customs officers and small-scale traders at the Seme border had highlighted multiple checkpoints along the Badagry-Seme corridor, unclear procedures, identification challenges, harassment, intimidation, poor road conditions and inadequate access to essential facilities.

He cited a trader, Madam Iyabo, who said a journey that previously took one day now takes three to five days.

“Every additional day increases her costs, reduces her profit and places greater pressure on her business and family,” he said.

Mr Ekremet said the findings underscored the need for improved trader education, simpler documentation, better coordination among border agencies and more accessible facilities for women.

He added that the initiative would work with government and regional partners to promote safer border practices, strengthen women’s associations and establish effective channels for reporting harassment.

While speaking to the PREMIUM TIMES after the launch, Sand Mba, Executive Director of the Africa International Trade and Commerce Research, which he described as the lead implementing consortium for the project, said the initiative would help address gender-based barriers, improve access to trade information and enable women to benefit from existing regional trade agreements.

He said several policies and protocols already support cross-border trade, including the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), its Protocol on Women and Youth in Trade, and the Economic Community of West African States’ (ECOWAS) Trade Liberalisation Scheme.

However, Mr Mba said implementation and access to information remained significant gaps.

“There are fantastic policies on the ground that will make women trade, but it is the implementation that we have the gap, and accessing information to make this information work. That is where we have the gap,” Mr Mba said.

He called for stronger cooperation between the government and project partners to ensure women traders understood and could access available trade facilitation mechanisms.

A representative of the Bank of Industry’s Gender Inclusion Unit, Jelilat Ismaila-Ayinde, also highlighted financing opportunities available to women-owned businesses through the bank’s Guaranteed GLOW for Women product.

She said the initiative was designed to support Nigerian women in light manufacturing, agro-processing, healthcare, and other sectors the bank supports, particularly those operating micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises.

Ms Ismaila-Ayinde said the product offered financing of up to ₦50 million, required one guarantor, and that the bank planned to digitise the application process to improve nationwide access.

She, however, noted that the product did not cover trading, while encouraging women entrepreneurs in eligible sectors to explore the bank’s online application platform.

At the event, the president of the Lagos State Association of Pineapple Sellers, Omotola Durotola, also spoke on the challenges facing traders, saying women in cross-border agricultural trade struggled to access producers, secure adequate capital, and find suitable markets.

She said many traders bought goods on credit because they lacked the funds to buy them outright, while some sellers operated under bridges in Lagos because market facilities were inadequate.

The association called for support to improve access to agricultural producers in the Republic of Benin, provide financing for traders, and build suitable market infrastructure in Lagos.