Limited bankable deals stall US$40m women in energy fund, WIEN says
Structural barriers, not lack of capacity are blamed for slow access to NCDMB-backed intervention
A US$40m intervention energy fund created to boost women’s participation in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry is struggling to gain traction, not because of a shortage of capable female entrepreneurs, but because of limited access to bankable contract opportunities.
The Women in Energy Network has expressed concern that the Women in Energy Fund, launched in November 2025 by the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board in collaboration with the Nigeria Export-Import Bank, is being underutilised due to structural bottlenecks within the sector.
The energy fund was designed to strengthen women-owned businesses operating across Nigeria’s oil, gas and mining industries. It specifically targets companies led by female chief executives or businesses where women hold at least 51 percent ownership and significant management control, with 40 percent representation required at the management level.
However, despite the availability of capital, access remains constrained.
Speaking during a policy engagement with the Special Adviser to the President on Energy, Olu Verheijen, President of the Women in Energy Network, Eyono Fatayi-Williams, argued that the core issue is not competence but opportunity.
“The underutilisation of this fund does not stem from a lack of capable women-owned businesses,” Fatayi-Williams said. “It is largely due to limited access to bankable contract opportunities in the oil and gas sector.”
Her remarks draw attention to deeper structural challenges within the industry, where women continue to face systemic barriers across workforce participation, leadership representation and enterprise ownership.
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Data presented by the network reinforces this imbalance. According to the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, in 2022, out of 6,728 employees in the oil and gas industry, only 1,144 were women, representing 17 percent. In 2023, total employment rose to 8,694, yet women accounted for just 1,391 positions.
WIEN also noted that women currently make up 18.2 percent of Nigeria’s energy workforce and 25.6 percent of leadership roles. On the Joint Qualification System platform, which has over 35,000 registered companies, less than two percent are women-owned.
The future talent pipeline also remains narrow. Women represent only 17 percent of current enrolments in science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines, raising concerns about long-term representation in technical roles within the energy sector.
While the fund was introduced to address declining female participation in extractive industries, WIEN insists that financing alone cannot resolve entrenched structural gaps.
The network called for urgent reforms to remove systemic barriers that limit women’s access to large, bankable contracts, warning that without contract opportunities, financing instruments risk remaining symbolic rather than transformative.
In response, Verheijen acknowledged the concerns and expressed commitment to promoting policies that ensure women are not structurally locked out of economic opportunities in the oil and gas industry before they are given a fair opportunity to grow.
The issue now shifts from the availability of funding to whether meaningful industry reforms will follow, ensuring that women can access both capital and the contracts required to deploy it effectively.
