By David Akinmola
As part of its continued effort to increase opportunities for women, accelerate their participation in economic activities and encourage digital equity, AXA Mansard, a member of AXA, a global leader in insurance and asset management, has empowered over 100 young female entrepreneurs with digital marketing skills in Lagos.
The two-day digital marketing training held in Lagos, as part of the company’s lined-up programmes to commemorate this year’s International Women’s Day, “seeks to empower female SMEs owners with skills to improve their digital output and position them for the immense opportunities available in the digital space”, said the Chief Customer and Marketing Officer, AXA Mansard, Jumoke Odunlami,
Odunlami noted that this is in line with AXA
Mansard’s inclusivity agenda; explains that the company is convinced that support for women through its inclusive protection programmes, is important to AXA’s purpose of acting for human progress by protecting what matters.
She furthered that focusing on digital equity as a sub-theme of this year’s IWD is because the company realizes the importance of digital to the growth of the SME sector in Nigeria and wants to ensure that women are empowered enough to be a significant part of that growth.
“It’s almost trite to say that SMEs are the engine for economic growth, especially in developing countries like Nigeria. What needs to be continually discussed is how Nigeria is going to unlock that potential for economic development and how much of those potential will be unlocked by women and for women “.
“For us at AXA Mansard, we are aware that digital will play a major role in Nigeria’s economic future. So, to ensure that women are equally represented in unlocking these future potentials, that’s why we have collaborated with SME 100 Africa to support them in developing the required skills”.
“Our choice of digital marketing as the skill to leverage is also deliberate. We understand the power of marketing.
We understand that helping these SMEs with the skill to attract more customers will be a faster means to empower them. We see that they have amazing products and services, but they need to understand how to attract value for themselves by attracting the right customers, and you will agree with me that virtually all customer segments are online in one way or the other today. So, if we can empower them with digital marketing skills, we would have been helping them with the heavy lifting of trying to find and attract customers”. Odunlami explained.
Commenting on the programme, Charles Odii, the Chief Executive Officer, of SME 100 Africa, explained that the company is happy to partner with AXA Mansard again to empower women within the SME space. He said, “We believe that for the world to truly experience progress, there must be an equitable distribution in the creation and access to opportunities for men and women”.He noted that this quest for balance informed the digital marketing training.
He furthered, “This training is part of the group of initiatives we have designed for the Nigerian woman. Our goal is to see them grow, add value to their lives and help them mitigate risks every step along the way. What we found through our research is that regardless of the economic segment, access to digital skills is one of the most important things to present-day Nigerian women and they desire to be financially independent, secure and to be respected in the community”.
Odii concluded “Women entrepreneurs play a vital role in unlocking economic growth as they provide the majority of the labour with little resources. As an organization, we will therefore continue to create opportunities for these women to grow and achieve their dreams. We wish every Nigerian woman a happy Women’s Month.”
