The Livelihood Improvement Family Enterprises, Niger Delta (LIFE-ND) has built the capacity of some beneficiaries of the project in Abia, on financial inclusion.
The participants, who are referred to as incubatees, were engaged by the financial experts from banks and insurance firms, during a working session at the LIFE-ND secretariat in Umuahia.
The State Project Coordinator, Abia LIFE-ND, Dr Uchenna Onyeizu, said that session was for some of the beneficiaries who had been empowered in various agro-enterprises and are carrying our one business or the other.
He said that the project had in all those successes, seen a lot of the beneficiaries encountering some financial challenges.
According to him, component 1.3 of our project deals on financial inclusion, which gives us the opportunity to link some of our beneficiaries to other financial institutions that they could leverage on.
Onyeizu said: “LIFE-ND-funded project by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) deals on rural youths and women-headed households.
“We also know that they are populations that are less educated, unemployed or underemployed.
“So they lack some of these knowledge or information to engage financial institutions.
“The essence of the capacity building is to bridge those gaps, to enable them deal on issues around insurance, remittances for financial provisions made to them and acquiring loans from different banks.”
He emphasised that the workshop was organised to educate the beneficiaries more on the Point-of-Sale (POS) machines that were earlier given to them to transact their businesses.
A resource person, Mr Ukonu Eseonu, who educated the participants on the payment system, stressed the need for electronic transaction, especially with the POS machine.
He told the beneficiaries that the POS machine was not only vital for their agro-enterprises, but could also be another source of revenue generation by establishing a POS centre for themselves.
Eseonu equally advised them to register their business with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), so as to help them obtain a substantial amount of loan.
The Financial Inclusion Specialist, Abia LIFE-ND, Mr Lucky Ubani, said that the essence of the training was to expose the beneficiaries (incubatees) to the payment system of insurance and remittances.
He said that it is one of IFAD’s requirements in financial inclusion logical framework.
Ubani said that four beneficiaries per community were selected from Batch 4 of the project, to participate in the capacity building workshop.
“It is a training-of-trainers session, whereby those of our beneficiaries that have be given the knowledge will be able to pass it the down to their colleagues within their communities,” he said.
A participant, Theresa Ochu, who is a LIFE-ND beneficiary in oil palm processing at Eziama, Igbere in Bende Local Government Area (LGA), expressed gratitude to the organisers for the empowerment.
“Now, I have an assurance of using a POS system and I can use my bank apps to do transfer and other transactions,” she said.
Another participant, Mr Smart Odingwa from Isiala Ngwa South LGA, said that the training exposed him to ways he could expand his business as well as relate with the financial institutions.
LIFE-ND is funded by IFAD in collaboration with the Federal Government and Niger Delta Development Commission(NDDC), to create jobs for unemployed youths and women-headed households, as well as boost food security in Niger Delta.
