Nigeria Launches BRICS Women's Business Alliance Regional Office

• Nigeria has opened the BRICS Women's Business Alliance Regional Office
• The BRICS Women's Business Alliance is an autonomous, business-oriented entity within the BRICS environment
• Every national chapter should provide practical outcomes instead of merely organizing meetings

Nigeria has now become the host of the BRICS Women's Business Alliance (WBA) Regional Office, a major step towards advancing women entrepreneurship in the BRICS and African regions.

The BRICS WBA exists as a standalone, business-oriented initiative within the general BRICS initiative, with every national chapter being responsible for providing tangible results.

Members of each chapter must report on what they are accomplishing to make sure that the alliance has action rather than meetings at its core.

The establishment of the regional office in Nigeria comes shortly after its ascension on as a BRICS partner state in October 2024 at the 16th BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia.

Joining Nigeria are other partner states, including Algeria, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.

This also dovetails with comments made earlier in November 2023 by Nigeria's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar, when he suggested that the country may be in the position to walk to BRICS in just two years as a full member.

Given its enormous economy, population base, and strong oil and gas sector, Nigeria is rapidly becoming a major host country of considerable BRICS projects.

The move to locate the BRICS WBA regional office in Nigeria was ratified by the Russian branch of the alliance following deep-level deliberations.

The news came during a two-day working visit by a five-member Russian delegation headed by Anna Nesterova, Chairperson of BRICS Russia WBA.

As part of the visit, the delegation also had an in-camera meeting with Nigeria's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu, at the State House, emphasizing the strategic significance of the initiative towards economic cooperation and entrepreneurship among women.