The Central Bank of Nigeria’s Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele has said the bank empowered over four million farmers through its various agriculturally based intervention schemes with at least two million jobs created.
He stated this Thursday in Abuja at the 2022 International Financial Inclusion Conference, tagged “Financial Inclusion for all: Scaling Innovative Digital Models.”
He said the CBN has prioritised financial inclusion hence the various interventions to smallholder farmers and other MSMEs.
“My team and I have prioritized financial inclusion through our intervention to farmers and to small and medium scale businesses. From 2015 to date, over 4 million small-holder farmers cutting across all states in the country were provided concessionary credit facilities” he said.
He noted that “while this has boosted the economic fortunes of these farmers it also improved national food output, prevented food insecurity and created over 2 million jobs in the process.”
He further noted that all credits to these farmers were disbursed via digital channels further boosting financial inclusion in rural areas.
According to the CBN Governor, the apex Bank’s focus is on leveraging digital innovations to drive financial inclusion as this is one of the main motivations for the launch of the eNaira, Nigeria’s digital currency.
“To ensure that the eNaira is enabled for financial inclusion, a USSD channel for eNaira was created. This modification has now made it possible for all generations of mobile devices including old phones, including those feature phones owned by rural dwellers to be compatible with the interface of the eNaira” he noted.
“Accordingly, even the most remote and the most vulnerable households and businesses now have unlimited and uninhibited access to the digital currency, the eNaira. The offline and smart contract capability of eNaira is a catalyst for broad adoption in underserved areas” he assured.
