ILO news (Abuja): A two-day training workshop on the Female and Male Operated Small (FAMOS) Check was conducted by the Central Bank of Nigeria in collaboration with International Labour Organization (ILO), on September 11 & 12, 2013 in Abuja, Nigeria.
The workshop’s aimed to enhance the capacity of women entrepreneurs in Nigeria by producing well trained FAMOS Check practitioners for the Central Bank of Nigeria, microfinance institutions, and other stakeholders in Nigeria who will be acquainted with the basic concept of FAMOS Check as a bridge to increasing access to formal finance opportunities by women in Nigeria. It had the following specific objectives:
acquaint participants with the basic concepts of FAMOS Check as a bridge to increasing access to formal finance opportunities for women entrepreneurs in Nigeria;
build the capacity and promote knowledge sharing in understanding financial inclusion of women entrepreneurs in Nigeria;
identify gaps and barriers to access financial services by women entrepreneurs in Nigeria;
build the capacity of the Task Force members on gender and gender mainstreaming so that they are enabled to have a clear understanding of the prevailing gender dynamics which will assist them to develop financial products that address the specific needs of women entrepreneurs.
bring to fore a platform to share with stakeholders information and insights into the activities and results of the FAMOS Checks in countries that have adopted the tool.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and ILO have been collaborating in backstopping the implementation of an initiative on “Enhancing the Financial inclusion of Women Entrepreneurs in Nigeria to Provide Access to Credit Facilities for Women in Nigeria”.
This collaboration led to the formation of a task force on Financial Inclusion for Women Entrepreneurs that is chaired by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) comprising of: Bankers Sub-committee on Women Economic Empowerment, Federal Ministry of Women and Youth Affairs (FMWYA), Bank of Industry(BOI), Nigeria Employer’s Consultative Association (NECA), Enhancing Financial Innovation and Access (EFInA), National Association of Microfinance Banks (NAMB), Association of Non-Bank Microfinance Institutions, Women In Business and Public Service (WIMBIZ) and the International Labor Organization (ILO).
FAMOS (Female And Male Operated Small Enterprises) Check is an organizational development tool that helps to enable organizations employ a set of gender self-check methods to assess its position and thereafter develop interventions and measures that will enable it to improve its service delivery to small enterprises, in particular, in respect of responding to the needs of women entrepreneurs. The tool relies significantly on the ability of a service provider to undertake an analysis of its clientele’s value chain. The self-check is normally carried out by an internal team with support from external facilitators.
