From Idris Khalid, Bauchi
The Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) has commenced an 18-month project targeting 25,000 women and girls in Bauchi and Kano states as part of efforts to bridge the gender digital divide and expand access to economic opportunities in the digital space.
The project, titled “Addressing the Gender Digital Divide and Expanding Business Opportunities for Women and Girls in Northern Nigeria (Agenda-WINNIG),” is aimed at equipping women and girls with digital literacy, online safety, digital hygiene and entrepreneurship skills.
Speaking at a state-level stakeholder engagement in Bauchi on Tuesday, the programme manager of the project, Fatima Babakura, said the initiative, which commenced in February 2026 and is expected to run until July or August 2027, was designed to improve women’s and girls’ access to digital opportunities, particularly in rural communities.
She said the project had three major components, including basic digital literacy and online safety, computer-based testing (CBT) coaching for secondary school students, and digital entrepreneurship for women and girls.
According to her, 15,000 women and girls are targeted for training in basic digital literacy, online safety and digital hygiene.
She added that another 5,000 final-year secondary school girls, particularly those preparing for the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) examination, would receive CBT training to enable them develop the necessary computer skills to sit for computer-based examinations without difficulties.
Babakura further said 5,000 additional women and girls would be trained in digital entrepreneurship, with emphasis on using digital platforms to market their products, reach wider customers and expand their businesses into the online marketplace.
She said the beneficiaries would be drawn from Bauchi and Kano states, stressing that the interventions were aimed at ensuring that women and girls were not left behind as digital technologies increasingly shape education, business and economic opportunities.
She explained that the stakeholder engagement was organised to identify challenges and barriers affecting women’s and girls’ participation in the digital space and obtain recommendations that would strengthen the implementation of the project.
Babakura said the recommendations from stakeholder engagements at state and federal levels would also contribute to the development of a policy brief aimed at addressing the gender digital divide and improving access to digital opportunities.
Also speaking, CITAD Programme Officer and head of the Bauchi team, Mr. Mujahid Ibrahim, said the Centre was engaging communities across the state to better understand the challenges women and girls face in accessing and benefiting from digital technologies and economic opportunities.
He said CITAD was working with community-based organisations and other local networks to mobilise beneficiaries, particularly those in hard-to-reach communities.
According to him, the project is being implemented across the 20 local government areas of Bauchi State, with community mobilisers supporting the identification and mobilisation of beneficiaries for the various training programmes.
“We use the network of community-based organisations and partners in the communities to mobilise beneficiaries, after which we go to the communities to conduct the training,” Ibrahim said.
He said the project had already reached its targeted number of beneficiaries in Bauchi, while implementation of the various interventions was ongoing.
Ibrahim described the stakeholder engagement as productive, saying participants had made contributions and offered recommendations on how to improve the implementation of the project.
He explained that stakeholders were initially consulted before the commencement of the project, while the latest engagement was organised at the end of the second quarter to review progress and obtain further recommendations.
“We captured their advice on how to go about the project before we started, and now, at the end of the second quarter, we have called them again and they have responded and are contributing.
“Their contributions are very important because we are receiving their insights on how to improve the implementation of the project,” he said.
Ibrahim said the stakeholders included government institutions, community leaders, information technology organisations, civil society organisations, community-based organisations, traditional and religious leaders, lecturers, financial institutions, private sector actors and development partners.
He said their involvement was important because of their roles in education, capacity building, knowledge acquisition, financing and community development.
Ibrahim said the project was ultimately aimed at strengthening women’s digital inclusion and entrepreneurship by equipping them with relevant skills and improving their access to digital economic opportunities.
The stakeholder engagement formed part of CITAD’s broader activities under the Agenda-WINNIG project to promote digital inclusion, online safety, CBT readiness and entrepreneurship among women and girls in Bauchi and Kano states.
