12. Microfinance as a Vehicle for Zero Poverty and Gender Equality in Nigeria

Robust economic growth and development cannot be achieved without putting in place well focused policies and programs to reduce poverty and promote gender equality through empowering the people by increasing their access to credit facilities. The latent capacity of the poor and the women would be significantly enhanced through the provision of microfinance services to enable them to engage in economic activities and to be more self-reliant, increase employment opportunities, enhance household income, and create wealth. Thus, the study set out to investigate how microfinance could be applied as a vehicle for zero poverty and gender equality in Nigeria. The study employed a basic growth–poverty model and descriptive statistics using data from 1980 to 2020. Results show that microfinance is a veritable tool to achieving zero poverty in Nigeria. Results also suggest that gender equality would be significantly addressed with the judicious application of microfinance to women in Nigeria. The study concludes that microfinance services are a means of broadening economic participation to include marginal groups that have been left out previously, which makes microfinance institutions effective by its ability to enhance poverty eradication and gender equality. The study recommends that microfinance institutions should be adequately capitalized, appropriately regulated, and supervised to address the need of financing at the micro levels of the economy if our objective of sustainable zero poverty and gender equality are to be achieved now and in the future.