Prudent Women Targets Bigger National Impact, Unveils Ambitious Plan to Drive Women into Economic, Political Leadership

Sunday Aborisade in Abuja

Prudent Women Multipurpose Co-operative has marked its fifth anniversary with a bold commitment to scale up its influence nationwide, declaring that its next phase will focus on pushing women decisively into economic empowerment, education, housing acquisition and leadership roles across Nigeria.

Speaking at the anniversary conference in Abuja, the President and Founder, Mrs. Msurshima Comfort Chenge, said the cooperative is entering a new era of advocacy and rights-based engagement designed to strengthen women’s economic independence and accelerate their participation in national development.

She noted that the last five years, during which the organisation evolved from a small cooperative into a national network, had been dedicated to intensive mentoring, capacity building and financial support aimed at pulling more women out of poverty.

“In the last five years, we have touched the lives of women by not only training them to be self-reliant but also disbursing funds to enable them to scale up their businesses. We have members across all 36 states and the FCT, and even outside Nigeria,” Chenge said.

According to her, the organisation is now poised for greater national impact, with programmes targeted at helping women realise life goals, advance in education, expand their businesses, become homeowners and emerge as voices in leadership and governance.

She said the organisation’s next strategic phase will place stronger emphasis on advocacy, education and the protection of girls’ and women’s rights, noting that true empowerment must include both economic capacity and institutional support.

Delivering the keynote address, Mrs. Hansatu Adegbite urged Nigerians to take greater responsibility for community development rather than leaving it solely to the government.

She identified information gaps, limited access to resources and inadequate skills as major barriers confronting women across the country.

Adegbite called on financial institutions to design loan products tailored for women, with moderate interest rates, adding that access to credit remains one of the most critical but underserved needs for women entrepreneurs.

Also speaking, the founder of the Halima Factor Community Initiative, Halima Usman, applauded Prudent Women for its expanding contributions to women’s economic integration, describing women as an indispensable segment of national development.

“No country can make economic headway if half of its population is not harnessed. Beyond financial empowerment, this organisation has equipped women mentally and spiritually to take their rightful place in society,” Usman said.

The event also featured the public presentation of ‘100 Prudent Women’, a compendium profiling a hundred Nigerian women who have made exceptional impact across diverse fields, intended as both an inspirational text and a documentation of emerging female leadership in the country.