To tackle localized economic insecurity and accelerate micro-enterprise growth, women-focused non-profit organization Leading Ladies Africa (LLA) has received a development grant from The Coca-Cola Foundation to expand its Enterprise and Leadership Programme (ELP).
The grant will enable the initiative to scale up its reach significantly, providing business education, structural technical guidance, and seed funding directly to 1,000 women-owned micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) across the region.
Targeted Scaling and Multi-City Cohorts
The Enterprise and Leadership Programme first launched in 2019 and has already trained and supported more than 500 female entrepreneurs across Nigeria. The new financial injection from The Coca-Cola Foundation allows LLA to transition the program from localized workshops into a broader, multi-city rollout.
The training modules will move forward through a phased geographic approach, targeting urban and peri-urban trade centers where women face high barriers to formal business education. The first cohort of the scaled-up program will kick off in Benin City, with a second training cycle launching immediately after in Warri.
Curriculum and Seed Capital Incentives
The program addresses core bottlenecks that frequently cause early-stage, women-owned businesses to collapse within their first three years, such as lack of accounting records, small business networks, and limited access to bank loans.
The intervention is structured around three main support pillars:
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Practical Entrepreneurship Training: Hands-on classes covering digital bookkeeping, supply chain logistics, inventory metrics, and cost management.
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Corporate Mentorship Pipelines: Matching each participant with an experienced African business leader to guide them through everyday operating challenges.
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Equity-Free Seed Funding: Pitch competitions at the end of the workshops where outstanding founders can secure non-dilutive capital—such as cash grants of up to ₦250,000—to purchase equipment and inventory.
Leading Ladies Africa founder Francesca Uriri explained that the program aligns closely with United Nations Sustainable Development Goals ($\text{SDGs}$), specifically Goal 5 (Gender Equality) and Goal 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth). She noted that the curriculum is designed to help female merchants convert everyday market opportunities into highly resilient, profitable entities that generate social and economic value for their families.
