Business
Centre Plans Male-Inclined Skills For Women
The Director-General, Na
tional Centre for Women Development (NCWD), Ms Onyeka Onwenu, said the centre would soon introduce male dominated trades into its skills acquisition programme.
Onwenu told newsmen in Abuja that the center will include such skills regarded as the unusual skills for women.
She listed the skills as carpentry, tiling, plumbing, mechanic and welding, among others.
She said that although people generally believe that such skills were exclusively for men because they require much vigour, but there were still women who are ready to embrace them.
“We know that individuals have their idea about carpentry, tiling, plumbing and the rest of such skills as which belong to the men, but it is weird if women do them too.
“In fact, we want to train women even to drive lorries because we already have those of them who drive commercial vehicles.
“When we have the women trained in these skills, you will be surprised that people will patronise them more bearing in mind that they could trust what they will come up with,” she said.
The director-general said that the centre would engage the services of organisations that would assist in the training of these women.
She added that these organisations would train the women to be acquainted with what was required of such skills.
However, Onwenu said that funding was a very big challenge to attaining the introduction of these programmes.
“We really want to empower so many women so that we can save the posterity of our dear nation.
“But to achieve this, we require funding because to empower women you need to be equipped to come up with results.
“If our scope of accessing funds is widened, it will enable us to engage more women to acquire these skills.
“People are saying that there are no jobs but let me assure you that jobs are everywhere, but our people are not challenged towards acquiring these skills that will earn them a living,” said Onwenu. Besides, Onwenu disclosed that the centre was collaborating with United Nations agencies to assist them develop more programmes that could empower women in the country.
She urged non-responsive UN agencies to speed up their intervention for the benefit of Nigerian women.
“We have been seeking assistance from the UN agencies but their responses have not been encouraging.
“Some of them are yet to believe and trust in what we can do and the specific areas the centre can channel its activities.
“They believe that the centre should be working hand-in-hand with the Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development and they tend to address us from the ministry.
“They concentrate on the ministry and overlook what we do.
“Some of them actually assist but before they come up with what they have, the centre already owes because we urgently need to implement our programmes.
“They take as long as one year before they respond to our needs meanwhile it is an assistance we need within a short period,” the director-general said.
She reassured that the activities of the centre have been fortified with so many women who have benefited from its various skills acquisition programmes.
Onwenu also called on international organisations to support the activities of the centre, adding that the programmes were driven to empower rural women.
Cornerstone of Financial Services
A survey of more than 1 000 global finance leaders undertaken by digital payment network Ripple shows that 72% of respondents believe they need to offer a digital asset solution to remain competitive.
According to Ripple, leaders from the banking, fintech, corporate and asset management sector have made it clear that the “digital asset revolution is happening now”.
“Digital assets are quickly becoming a cornerstone of financial services, underpinned by progressive regulation, growing interest from Tier-1 banks, a steady consumer shift from banks to fintech providers, and booming stablecoin adoption,” Ripple says.
The survey was conducted in early 2026 and the findings released in March.
Stablecoin Boon or Bane?
Ripple has experienced significant success in the stablecoin sector since launching its Ripple USD (RLUSD) stablecoin in 2024.
With a market cap of $1.56 billion, it is considered a major regulated player in the market.
No doubt the platform was pleased to learn through its own survey that financial leaders were most bullish about stablecoins.
Roughly three-quarters of respondents believed they could boost cash-flow efficiency and unlock trapped working capital.
Ripple noted that finance leaders were thinking about stablecoins as more than “just a new way to execute payments”; instead, they viewed them as effective tools for treasury management.
In March 2026, Ripple began testing a new trade finance model built around RLUSD in a bid to increase the speed of cross-border payments.
The pilot initiative, developed alongside supply chain finance company Unloq [https://unloq.com], is running on the XRP Ledger inside a testing framework developed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
The Asian city-state is one of the platform’s biggest growth markets.
The idea behind the project is to see whether stablecoin-based settlement can streamline trade finance, too often hampered by reliance on intermediaries and slow reconciliation.
The only potential drawback is that if the initiative takes off, the Ripple to USD price could be negatively affected.
Ripple has always championed its native XRP token as a bridge asset, the “middleman” in the process of a financial institution turning dollars in the US into pounds in the UK, for example.
Ripple converts dollars into XRP and then back into pounds.
If RLUSD can do exactly the same thing, questions will be asked about XRP’s relevance.
That is a bridge Ripple will have to cross if it gets to that point.
Tokenisation Partners
Another interesting finding from Ripple’s survey is that most banks and asset managers are seeking tokenisation partners to help execute their strategies.
Some 89% of respondents said digital asset storage and custody were top priority. “Token servicing/lifecycle management also ranks highly for banks at 82%, while asset managers place greater emphasis on primary distribution at 80%,” Ripple found.
The survey also revealed that just more than half of fintechs and financial institutions want an infrastructure provider that can offer a “one-stop-shop solution”. This rose to 71% among corporate financial leaders.
Ripple attributes this to institutions and firms wanting uncomplicated, cohesive systems.
Infrastructure Rules
In its final analysis, Ripple says companies across the board are looking for partners and solutions that are “secure, compliant, battle-tested and that enable growth and execution”.
“The message is clear: infrastructure decisions made today will shape competitive positioning tomorrow.”
No surprise that this is precisely where Ripple is placing much of its focus.
