Abstract

This study was undertaken to explore how female–oriented microenterprises can be used for the empowering of women. Participating Governments In the 1995 Beijing Declaration adopted at the fourth World Conference on Women, expressed their commitments “to advance the goals of equality, development and peace for all women everywhere in the interest of humanity”. Nigeria currently has a population of 201 million (United Nations Fund for Population Activity, 2019) out of which 49.4% are women. But the female population seems to be at a disadvantage resulting from their high level of poverty, low level of literacy, low level of labour force participation, poor health indices and poor access to decision-making power. All these can impact negatively on the overall development of the nation. It is therefore expedient for this poor condition of the female to be addressed through empowerment programmes, since they constitute about half of Nigeria’s total population. The objectives of this study are: find out why is women empowerment crucial; investigate the justification for the need to promoting female-oriented microenterprises; and to examine how the 3–H Project’s female-oriented microenterprises have been used as a strategy for women empowerment. A total of 170 respondents were selected for the study using simple random sampling method. The interview technique was employed to gather the data, which was analysed with the aid of the SPSS statistical package. Findings revealed among other things that if women are to be truly empowered through microenterprises, the effort must be female-oriented and the necessary credit and infrastructure provided through inter-sectoral collaboration.