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By Kenneth Jukpor
As part of efforts to key into the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) 2019 theme on “Empowering Women in the Maritime Community”, the Nigerian chapter of African Women in Maritime (WIMAfrica) will host the maiden edition of an annual conference in October 2019.
The President of WIMA-Nigeria, Hajia Bola Muse, revealed this during a press briefing yesterday, as she stated that that the 2019 conference of the association would seek to encourage effective participation of more women in the maritime industry.
According to her, the conference with the theme “Empowering Women For Effective Participation in the Maritime Sector”scheduled to hold on October 15th, will provide a platform for training, capacity building, corporate and entrepreneurial development of African women in the maritime sector.
She urged women from all aspects of maritime industry to participate in the conference as many experts would be available to train them on how to excel in the industry like their male counterparts.
WIMA-Nigeria is a chapter of WIMAfrica which adopted the maritime strategy 2050 to contribute to the building Africa’s blue economy.
“WIMAfrica was established in Luanda, Angola on the 25th of March 2015 with the response to the request made by Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Chairperson of the African Union Commission(AUC), during her inaugural speech”
“Since inception of WIMA-Nigeria in 2017, we have had two dispensations of executives who have been progressively growing the association.
“WIMAfrica had donated giant oven to Makoko Women Fishing community to enable them produce more fish for export and also donated waste bin to Inland Water Ways Authority to support in making our waters clean at all times.
“Between 2017 and 2018, we have formally registered the association and got recognized by the Federal Ministry of Transportation, the National Assembly and other national bodies,” she said.
Muse added that the association had undertaken some empowerment programmes including the donation of fish processing and preservation equipment to women in Makoko fishing community in Lagos.
The Chairman of Conference Committee of WIMA-Nigeria, Mrs. Foluke Akinmoladu urged both women and men to encourage women in businesses to take advantage of the conference and exploit the maritime industry.
“The conference will feature well established maritime professionals who will be coming and speak to the audience on areas of maritime business they can develop themselves in. It would showcase participants from maritime regulators to private sector operators who will enlighten participants on how best to run maritime businesses” she said.
She harped on the need for more Nigerian participation in the maritime sector adding that foreigners were making money from the country’s shores as well as through maritime businesses.
Akinmoladu also stressed that countries with gender equality have recorded more economic growth while companies with more women on their boards leaders perform better.
