What we do
BRAVE Women Nigeria is developing the capacity of women SME’s to achieve business resilience and become drivers of change in selected value-chain. The programme will accomplish by utilising the following:
- Business Resilience capacity building: train at least 600 SMEs on risk assessment and develop a Business Continuity Plan (BCP).
- Business Recovery support: provide matching grant support of $15,000-$50,000 for 500 SMEs and $40,000-$50,000 for Business Associations and Lead Firms.
- Value Chain resilience: assistance to firms with functional, process and product upgrades.
The following form a core of the target beneficiaries for BRAVE Women Nigeria:
Women Entrepreneurs
The direct target beneficiaries are women entrepreneurs in Edo, Gombe and Kano identified as fragile or conflict-affected environment, taking into consideration the perceptive of value chains to be targeted and the ongoing complementary initiatives in the country IsDBG and other DFIs/Donors).
The programme will specifically target women business owners and also those who are leading businesses but not necessarily owning them. The target women entrepreneurs will have at least one year of business experience in a legitimate running enterprise in the key priority sectors, and these may include but are not limited to the following sectors: health, food processing, agribusiness including livestock and fisheries, garments, and handicraft. Other sectors may be considered upon full due diligence, local consultation, and capacity assessment.
For the purpose of the programme activities and implementation, the following definition of woman-owned / women-led MSME business is adopted with a caveat noted below:
- ≥ 51% owned by a woman/women; or
- ≥ 20% owned by a woman/women; and have ≥ 1 woman as CEO/COO (President/Vice-
- President); and have ≥ 30% of the board of directors comprised of women, where a board exists; and
- The definition only covers cases of minimum loan size of $5,000/-. However, the nature of targeted Women SMEs and the challenge they face in obtaining bank loans in fragile environments under consideration, the grant matching contribution from BRAVE Women, and the matching amount from the firm owner will be a proxy for the size of the Loan. A supported business plan for each Women SME is set at a range from $5,000 to $15,000.
