In a statement, the director of financial sector development department at the African Development Bank Group, Stefan Nalletamby, said the funds will facilitate the deployment of women agents in the northern part of Nigeria, where due to security issues and cultural norms, women have been disproportionately excluded from accessing finance.
“It will also cover a feasibility study, human-centered design of a women-centric agent network and a pre-pilot to test the impact on the uptake of financial services by women in the Northern region,” Nalletamby added.
The director said AfDB, through ADFI, was delighted to support the project, furthering its work to improve the quality of life for people in Africa and contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to reduce poverty and inequality, particularly relating to gender.
ADFI coordinator, Sheila Okiro, said the project was selected from nearly 340 proposals sent in response to ADFI’s call to support financial inclusion in Africa using digital technology.
In his response, the chief executive officer, Y’ello Digital Financial Services, Usoro Usoro, said: “We are committed to ensuring that every Nigerian can seamlessly access financial services for their personal and business needs.
” To achieve this, we constantly seek partnerships to support the financial inclusion strategy of the federal government and the Central Bank of Nigeria. We are truly excited about this partnership with AFDB and the possibilities for advancing financial inclusion in Nigeria, particularly for the traditionally excluded segment of women in Northern Nigeria.”