Borderless Trade Network restates commitment to empower women SMEs across Nigeria

The Borderless Trade Network, an initiative by Olori-Boye Ajayi, a global trading expert and author of Borderless Trade: A Step by Step Guide to Exporting Your Product has restated commitment to empowering women with Small and Medium Enterprises in Nigeria.

The Borderless Trade Salon series was set up to carter for the business and emotional needs of women in transition and women in business by empowering them with various means and skills that will enable them to disrupt the international market with their potential and any business career they choose.

The Borderless Trade journey kicked off on February 8th and 9th with the virtual Women in Business Salon Series where high-profiled speakers – Olori Boye-Ajayi, Kola Awe, Shade Bembatoum- Young, Dorothy Ogbutor and Babajide Sodipo – sensitized women from all across the world in attendance on the trading industry, the AfCFTA establishment protocols, application of the business models to their businesses and all important factors to become a modern-day businesswoman and upscale their businesses to global levels.

Speaking with a team of press members at the BTSS press briefing, the host and President of the Borderless Trade Network, Olori Boye-Ajayi shared the importance of bringing more women into the trade industry.

Read Also: Lagos Lotteries Board gets ISO certifications

“Research has shown us that there is only 1 in 4 women in the export industry and that is the gap we are trying to bridge”, we want women to be at equal competitive levels and we have to help ourselves, she said.

Boye-Ajayi stressed that with a teeming increase rate in the export and trade industry in Nigeria and the establishment of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), it has become imperative to build a platform to empower and sensitize women in business on ways to scale their businesses to international standards, particularly in this industry, in order to compete adequately with their international counterparts.

She further highlighted why it was pertinent to partner with the U.S Consulate Lagos and Ascend Studios Foundation for the Academy for Women Entrepreneurs (AWE) program.

The partnership with The Academy of Women Entrepreneurs (AWE) was very paramount due to the fact that it is a White House initiative with the main aim of empowering 50 million women by 2025, both financially and economically.

Boye-Ajayi mentioned the similarities with the partners and how they share a common goal; to empower women.

This program will run for a period of six months with thoughtfully organized activities that will impact every woman in business or transition inside The Borderless Trade Network.

Commenting on other projects, she mentioned the Zero to Hero initiative in partnership with Zenith bank which is a transformative training to drastically improve lives of women in the Export Community Agency (ECA).