Chief Executive Officer of Wema Bank Plc, Moruf Oseni, has stressed the need to provide an innovative platform to address fundamental issues impacting micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and women-led businesses while also focusing on climate issues.
Oseni spoke at the Bank’s Donor Roundtable tagged, ‘Innovative Financing: Gender-lens and Climate Resilient Solution’, held in Lagos at the weekend.
He lamented that MSMEs, despite being the largest employers of labour in the country, continue to suffer from problems of access to capital, development of critical managerial skills, access to markets, logistics challenge, a slowing economy and heightened inflation, which prevent most of them from surviving.
The CEO lamented the complication of climate change, saying it spurred significant shifts in human behaviour while adding further strain to societal dynamics.
To address the problems, he said, there is a need to create bespoke and innovative financing models that bridge funding disparities.
Oseni stressed the need to ensure that the funding options offer flexibility and ease of access to the unique needs of SMEs.
He said: “The world we face is a transformed one. The COVID-19 pandemic shut millions of people inside their homes and completely disrupted the global economy and the supply chain that underpins it. Global growth has been firmly below double digits for the last few years.
“Climate change has also unleashed a flood of migrants from the developing world into more developed countries. Pockets of conflict on the global stage have further exacerbated the growth problems we were already experiencing.
“The burden of this transformed world disproportionately falls on the youth and women in particular who face higher unemployment rates across every strata of society.”
Co-founder of Africa Sustainable Trade, Dr Ama Onyerinma, stressed the need to tackle the gender inequality challenge, noting that it stunts the growth of women entrepreneurs.
