On September 8–9, 2026, W.TEC’s Partnerships Manager, Blessed Hamed-Musa, and Monitoring & Evaluation Officer, Monsurat Oshinfisan, represented our organization at the Gender and Inclusion Summit 2026 at the Continental Hotel in Abuja.
Convening leaders across sectors to address structural barriers to gender equality in Nigeria, the summit featured a key presentation by Monsurat Oshinfisan titled “Infrastructure as inclusion: what access barriers reveal about digital skills training for underserved women entrepreneurs,” which spotlighted the physical realities of the digital divide.
Across Nigeria, the digital divide remains a pronounced barrier to economic empowerment. Current statistics show that rural internet access sits at just 23%, compared to a much higher 57% in urban centers. Furthermore, rural women own mobile phones at less than half the rate of their urban counterparts. The root of this problem isn’t a lack of interest in emerging technology, but rather the severe deficit in the physical infrastructure required to reach it.
Insights from the She Can with ICT Project
This critical gap was highly evident during W.TEC’s recent implementation of the She Can with ICT project. Backed by the ISHK Tolaram Foundation, this initiative targeted young women entrepreneur participants aged 18 to 35 in the underserved, low-income communities of Selewu, Ikorodu, Lagos. For most of these women, their primary connection to the outside world was through little more than a basic mobile phone.
Over the course of four months, W.TEC facilitated an intensive eight-week curriculum. Participants dove into high-impact digital skills training, mastering digital marketing, graphics design, video editing, and AI tools like ChatGPT, alongside comprehensive business strategies, mentorship, and a final capstone project.
Where Infrastructure Holds, Learning Follows
The post-training evaluation painted a vivid picture of success and structural challenge. When participants could consistently access the training, the results were transformative:
- 96% of participants reported a moderate to high improvement in their digital skills.
- 100% of the attendees successfully built a professional digital portfolio.
- 93% were successfully connected with an industry mentor.
Despite these outstanding metrics, the program saw a completion rate of 68% for the full eight weeks. The evaluation revealed that this shortfall was not due to a lack of interest or dedication. The most frequently cited reasons for missed sessions and dropout were venue distance and the high cost of commuting—a localized echo of the exact national infrastructure gaps the program set out to address.
Redefining Digital Inclusion
The clearest lesson from the Ikorodu cohort is that digital inclusion is not just a curriculum choice; it is a physical and infrastructural one. The physical location of a venue, transportation costs, and access to reliable internet and power fundamentally decide who benefits from training programs, much in the same way national infrastructure gaps dictate who gets to participate in the broader digital economy.
To ensure sustainable impact, future initiatives must pivot to address these realities. The presentation outlined several core recommendations for program design:
- Strategic Venue Selection: Provide better-equipped, localized venues that inherently support a seamless learning environment.
- Logistics Support: Introduce structural assistance, such as travel stipends or dedicated shuttle services, to remove commuting barriers for underserved women.
- Infrastructure-First Planning: Treat infrastructure access and planning as a core pillar of program design from day one, rather than an afterthought.
- Long-Term Tracking: Implement follow-up evaluations at the three-to-six-month mark to accurately measure sustained economic impact and continued resource access.
True economic empowerment requires us to look beyond the syllabus. By treating infrastructure as a non-negotiable component of digital inclusion, we can ensure that life-changing skills training actually reaches the women who are ready to build the future.