The Business Resilience Assistance for Value-Adding Enterprises (BRAVE) Women Nigeria has begun training over 600 project beneficiaries in Edo, Gombe and Kano States. The activity is slated to hold from December 15 to 18, 2021. The two-day intensive training sessions cover essential topics around running a business such as “Business in the society”, “Marketing” “Production” “Business Registrations” and much more. Trainees will also receive capacity building on developing sector-specific business continuity plans meant to guide the business processes in an unforeseen disaster.
The training process is an integral part of BRAVE Women Nigeria’s mandate to improve the entrepreneurial ecosystem for Women-owned/led SMEs in Nigeria, beginning with the project states. BRAVE Women Nigeria has selected a team of Business development support specialists to deliver the training to the project beneficiaries, which comprises successful applicants within the Project pre-selected value chains, Agricbusinesses, Health, Education, Energy, Fashion/Textile.
It is expected that at the end of the capacity buildings, participants will have been exposed to general business management best practices and provided tools to enhance their business approach, strengthening the bankability and sustainability of their businesses.
Completing the capacity-building exercises qualifies firms to apply for the Business Recovery Support fund (grant-matching). SMEs beneficiaries under this Project are entitled to apply for funds ranging from $5,000 to $15,000, which may support warehouse construction, new machinery installations, new branch openings, packaging, labelling designs and much more. Additionally, Lead Firms and Business Associations may apply for funds from $40,000 to $50,000 to support functional, product and process upgrading.
About BRAVE Women Nigeria
Business Resilience Assistance for Value-adding Enterprises for Women in Nigeria (BRAVE Women Nigeria) is part of the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi) funded through the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB). Nigeria’s Bank of Industry (BOI) is executing it. It combines training elements for 600 firms and grant-matching for 500 women-led SMEs, 20-30 lead firms, and 10 business associations to support growth and resilience. The Project seeks to enable an empowering business environment for women entrepreneurs in Nigeria and strengthen their resilience. This phase of the Project is being implemented in Edo, Gombe and Kano States and is expected to end in April 2023.
For more information on BRAVE Women Nigeria, please contact the BRAVE Project Management Unit by email (bravepmu@boi.ng)
