. Canvasses increased women CEOS in oil industry
The Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) has partnered the Association of Professional Women Engineers of Nigeria (APWEN) towards promoting Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) curricula in secondary schools across the country, with special targets for the girl child.
The partnership with APWEN was launched recently at St. Jude’s Girls Secondary School in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, with the “STEMitout4girls” campaign, themed: “Interest and Proficiency in STEM.”
In his keynote address, the Executive Secretary, NCDMB, Simbi Wabote, represented by the Deputy Manager, Capacity Building Division, Mofe Megbele, expressed the Board’s readiness to collaborate with the association in accomplishing programmes and policies geared toward promoting capacity development for girls.
He quoted Section 70 (n) of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development (NOGICD) Act, which provides for the Board to conduct workshops and trainings aimed at advancing the development of Nigerian Content.
He emphasized that “there is no local content without human capacity development and there has been significant growth achieved through the implementation of the 10-year strategic roadmaps for the oil and gas industry to accelerate the attainment of 70% Nigerian Content by 2027.
He also said the importance of educating girls in the society cannot be overemphasized, noting that Nigeria can only advance based on the quality of well-educated young girls.
He added that an educated girl child can confront issues facing humanities in the 21st century such as peace and security, climate change, sustainable development, food production, environmental issues.
Commending APWEN, Wabote assured that the Board will continue to support, monitor, and evaluate the growth and performances of the female students benefitting from the STEM programme and competition.
“I expect the students to fully apply the knowledge gained from this training to improve their performances in future examinations and competitions.
“One short way to underpin sustainable development is to entrench quality STEM education in our girls, armed with a quality education, these girls can aspire to be whatever they want to be in the near future,” he said.
Also speaking, the President, APWEN, Elizabeth Eterigho, disclosed that the training is targeted at increasing awareness on engineering as a suitable career for girls, to improve the numerical strength of female engineers in Nigeria, while providing the girl-child with the knowledge and skills needed to succeed in a rapidly changing world.
She admitted that there are difficulties in accessing quality learning opportunities in STEM subjects, which is why the engineering and science sectors seem to be dominated by males.
“Our educational system has allowed gender divides to be perpetuated and to disproportionally affect the most marginalized girls,” she regretted.
She commended the NCDMB for the partnership and presented the “Diversity Champion Award” to Wabote for his untiring efforts to promote and empower the girl child.
There is no local content without human capacity development and there has been significant growth achieved through the implementation of the 10-year strategic roadmaps for the oil and gas industry to accelerate the attainment of 70% Nigerian Content by 2027.
Women CEOS
In another development about 30 women chief executives are undergoing a six-day Entrepreneurship Training Workshop sponsored by the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
The training, based on a course content developed by the United Nations Conference for Trade and Development (UNCTAD), is being conducted by international master trainers certified by the agency.
Wabote, noted that women entrepreneurs were disproportionately few in the oil and gas industry and that the entrepreneurship development programme would equip women with critical skills to participate effectively in that sector and in other endeavours.
The Executive Secretary, represented by the Manager, Capacity Building, Mrs. Angela Okoro, said the training would place women entrepreneurs in a better position to benefit from the Nigerian Content Intervention Fund (NCIF), established by the NCDMB in collaboration with the Nigeria Export-Import Bank (NEXIM).
He said: “One of the reasons for getting this programme done is to ensure that women that participate in oil and gas business can have access to the (gender-based) Fund,” adding that the strategy is, “Teach them entrepreneurship; let them be entrepreneurs, so they’ll be able to apply.”
A pool of funds totalling $40 million, generated by the NCDMB and NEXIM to the tune of $20 million each, is available to women in oil and gas under the NCI Fund.
He noted that it is customary for the NCDMB to carry out entrepreneurship training alongside its other youth training programmes.
Wabote continued: “One of the things we always do with our Human Capacity Development (HCD) programmes is to train the participants on entrepreneurship, to ensure that if they don’t get any form of employment, they can do business on their own.
“In 2022, we trained 150 persons in different skillsets, and about 50 of them are now entrepreneurs in different fields. Some of them are watch repairers, some of them are dressmakers, caterers, phone repairers. We have someone in Yenagoa, who currently has over 20 employees.”
The workshop tagged: “Entrepreneurship Development Training for Women Business Leaders and Entrepreneurs,” is designed to teach how to “Identify your entrepreneurial potential; develop your personal entrepreneurial competencies, and identify new business opportunities.”
Two facilitators, namely, Dr Lemmy Omololu Omoyinmi, a Director of Empretec, an UNCTAD-certified training organisation, and his colleague, Osei Agyekum, highlighted pitfalls that participants have to guard against.
Omoninmi stressed the importance of self-evaluation, adding that the primary purpose of business is to serve human and societal needs.
Noting that profit is “a function of quality of what you are offering to the market,” he argued that “The operational objective ought not to be profit.” a
According to him, entrepreneurs “driven and intoxicated by the lust for profit act contrary to the principles of economics,” and their activities are injurious to the collective good.
On his part, Agyekum said the training programme is designed “to inculcate behaviours and competencies in participants,” adding that “mindset change” is a critical factor in business success.
