Experts in the development sector has canvassed a clear cut strategy that will boost financial inclusion for Women that will boost their overall wellbeing and enable them contribute to economic growth.

They made the call in Abuja on Wednesday at a fireside chat on the role of health insurance in promoting Women’s wellbeing organised by the Nigerian Solidarity Support Fund (NSSF) a subsidiary of the Nigerian Soverign Investment Authority (NSIA)

Speaking at the event,  the Managing Director of the NSSF, Dr Fejiro Chinye-Nwoko noted that financial inclusion has a key role to play in the empowerment of Women and their overall inclusion to women’s growth and development.

She said “And we know that also with the financial inclusion, you have more access to knowledge on how to take care of yourself better. For women, we need to improve their economic status. There is no way we are going to improve their health if their economic status is not improved.

“So one of the suggestions is about how can we empower these women, even if they are farmers or fishers or whatever their trade is. The entire conversation is how do we make sure that we empower them such that we can then now demand for them to begin to pay for health care by themselves and not get government to subsidize them so that they too can be able to contribute their quota to the Gross Domestic Product of the country through whatever trade they are undertaken, “

Also representative of the Director General of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) and senior special adviser to the DG, Prof Chima Onoka noted that the NHIA has rolled out planto leverage data to improve financial inclusion and health insurance for women especially in the rural areas.

Similarly,  Dr. Mojisola Odeku, Senior Officer, Advocacy and Multilateral Relations at the Gates Foundation noted that over 52 per cent of women in Nigeria are financially strained, adding that “There is a need to not only advance women’s health rights but mobilize ideas and get women financially engaged to boost their growth and development and that of the nation at large,”