According to the Katsina State Government, it has registered at least 400,000 women for empowerment thus far among the 34 Local Government Areas (LGAs) in the state.
This was revealed by Hajiya Zainab Musa-Musawa, the Commissioner for Women Affairs, during a Thursday interview in Katsina with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
In keeping with its commitment to women’s empowerment, she said the State Government has registered no fewer than 7,000 cooperative groups.
According to Musa-Musawa, the government has satisfied the requirements of the five-year World Bank Nigeria Women Empowerment Project.
She stated that the State Government intended to revitalise roughly four cottage centres within the state as part of the empowerment process.
She said the centres are Ajiwa pottery centre, Daura Bakery centre, Kankia oil extraction and Malumfashi grain processing centres.
The commissioner said that the aim of reviving the centres was for the empowerment.
She also said that government was targeting to make Katsina an oil and pottery producing state as well as best bakery and grain processing centre.
She said that Gov. Dikko Radda had established Katsina State Enterprise Development Agency to prove government’s commitment to empowerment.
According to her, the ministry is going to partner with the agency to ensure the empowerment of Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) women operators in the state.
“The State Government is making effort on a lot of women empowerment programmes in the state, especially on agriculture and SME.
“I assure you that women will always form a percentage on the total figure of any state, federal and World Bank empowerment that would come to the state.
“We are also going to leverage the World Bank empowerment project.
“It’s a very beautiful programme to be spread across the 34 LGAs of the state.
“And this is a grant that’s going to be provided. It’s about N60,000 for each to be financially included.
“The women have to commit themselves and fulfill certain criteria before qualifying for the grant.
“The grant encompasses educational and health support for the benefitting women across the state,” the commissioner said.