needs of women. bis central bankers ’ speeches skilled women are likely to access finance more easily. therefore, a necessary step in enhancing finance for the women should be to ensure an upscale of their leadership, technical, entrepreneurial and managerial skills. an important priority for governments should be increasing the enrolment of girls across all levels of education complemented by efforts to improve the quality of education that they receive. while it is important to build the capacity of financial institutions to better serve women entrepreneurs, it is also imperative that women are provided with the opportunity to be financially literate, so that they can speak the language of finance. women face peculiar exclusion as a result of cultural, religious and social biases that hinder their access to financial services. it will be pertinent to explore the possibility of enacting laws that address gender inequality, sexual harassment and discrimination as first step towards improving their access to financial services. initiatives by the central bank of nigeria women component of micro, small and medium enterprises development fund ( msmedf ) in order to promote the development of the microfinance sub - sector and provide for the wholesale funding requirements of microfinance banks and microfinance institutions, the revised microfinance policy, regulatory and supervisory framework for nigeria provided for the establishment of a microfinance development fund. one of the key targets of the microfinance policy is to eliminate gender disparity by ensuring that women ’ s access to financial services increases by 15 per cent annually. in view of the peculiar challenges faced by women in accessing financial services in nigeria, the cbn has approved the establishment of msmedf. it is intended that a minimum of 60 per cent of the msmedf should be committed to providing funding to women in order to address their peculiar financial exclusion challenges. the key objectives include providing grants for capacity building of staff in microfinance institutions ( mfbs, mfis and similar institutions ) and their apex bodies on women based lending, promoting the development of regulatory provisions that are favourable to women lending, supporting initiatives that can improve financial literacy, entrepreneurship development for women clients, supporting programmes that are geared towards the mobilization of women, research and development, and promotion of women friendly financial innovations and products. financial inclusion and entrepreneurship development the central bank of nigeria ( cbn ) appreciates the fact that financial access, inclusion and literacy are cornerstones for reducing poverty. to his end, we have taken the lead in developing nigeria ’ s national financial inclusion strategy to ensure

that a clear agenda is set for increasing both access and usage of financial services within a defined timeline for excluded groups including women. indeed, the financial inclusion strategy provides for reducing the exclusion rate of women from 54 per cent to 20 per cent by the year 2020. to achieve this, special incentives and provisions would be made available to financial institutions to develop products that would meet the needs of nigerian women. the cbn as part of its developmental efforts supports entrepreneurship development centres ( edc ) in the six geo - political zones of the country. the bank would endeavour to place more of a focus on women in the implementation of these centres. promoting women into leadership and decision making roles the bankers ’ committee, which comprises of the cbn, nigerian deposit insurance corporation ( ndic ), deposit money - banks and discount houses declared 2012 the year of “ women economic empowerment ”. i am also pleased to report that the bankers ’ committee also now has a dedicated sub - committee focused on women economic empowerment headed by the chief executive officer of standard chartered bank ( nigeria ) limited, bis central bankers ’ speeches mrs. bola adesola. one of focus areas of this sub - committee is to facilitate the decision of the bankers ’ committee to ensure that women occupy more leadership positions in the industry. presently, we have a situation where at the junior levels ; we have a situation where about 42 % of the junior roles in the industry are held by women. unfortunately, as they move on to middle and senior management roles, this starts to diminish to 31 and 27 per cent respectively. we have collectively agreed that by 2014, 40 per cent of senior management and 30 per cent of board level positions should be occupied by women. as we strive towards the improvement of the lot of african women, we must continue to extend their participation in leadership positions in the public and private sectors. the federal government of nigeria has shown some leadership in this regard through the appointment of 16 women as ministers in the cabinet. the cbn in recent years has also provided some leadership for the banking industry through its appointment of up to seven female directors in some cases to head departments that have been seen as traditionally male dominated environments. it is instructive to note that the cbn is coming from a position where it has only had four directors between 1959, the year of its establishments and 2009, when it celebrated 50 years of existence. conclusion ladies and gentlemen, as in other developing nations of the world, women in nigeria are faced with numerous socio - economic challenges