Nigeria's women founders are getting a funding network built for the way they actually borrow

Women own about 40% of Nigeria's small businesses, yet are turned down for loans more than three times as often as men — usually not for weak ideas but for lack of land or assets to pledge. A new effort aims to route around that wall: the UK government and FSD Africa are backing the RiTA Investment Network, run by Rising Tide Africa's women angel investors, with a $335,000 grant and a goal of raising ₦3.75 billion (about $2.7 million) from Nigerian investors over three years for 15 women-led companies. The tool is revenue-based financing — repayments rise and fall with sales, no land title required, no equity surrendered. Members have already pledged about $1.5 million, and the network's first deal, in September, backed waste-management firm Ororo. 'Nigeria does not lack capital,' said FSD Africa's Juliet Munro. What it lacks is channels — and this builds one.

SDG 5 · Gender equality — Mechanism: funding & finance