Reported by Ariajegbe Sylvia Esezobor
The Bureau of Public Procurement is developing a National Policy on Affirmative Procurement designed to expand access to public contracts for women-owned and women-led engineering businesses, in what officials describe as the first deliberate attempt to use the federal government’s spending power as a tool for economic inclusion and enterprise development.
The policy, disclosed by the Director-General of the BPP, Dr Adebowale Adedokun, at the 2026 International Conference of the Association of Professional Women Engineers of Nigeria in Abuja on Tuesday, will introduce mechanisms including quota allocation, joint bidding and subcontracting to bring historically underrepresented businesses into Nigeria’s procurement system. “More than ever before, the need for Affirmative Procurement has become expedient because it serves as a veritable tool to deliver the dividends of governance to all citizens,” Adedokun said in a goodwill message delivered on his behalf by Eugenia Ojeah, Head of the Energy Infrastructure Department at the BPP. He said the policy would, for the first time in Nigeria, align public procurement with the broader national agenda of economic inclusion, enterprise development and national development.
The BPP DG said women-owned businesses continued to face barriers including limited access to finance, inadequate technical capacity and historical exclusion from large-scale contracts. According to him, the policy would not amount to awarding contracts without regard to merit, but would create mechanisms that enable eligible businesses to compete. “It does not imply preferential treatment without merit; rather, it aims to expand opportunities, strengthen supplier diversity and build the capacity of target groups to compete effectively within the procurement system,” he said.
The policy’s proposed mechanisms of quota allocation, joint bidding and subcontracting are expected to provide different entry points into the procurement market. Joint bidding could enable smaller firms that lack the financial or technical capacity to execute large contracts independently to partner with more established companies. Subcontracting could similarly provide smaller women-owned enterprises with access to sections of major infrastructure projects while building their technical and financial capacity for larger contracts. The BPP said women engineers should not be confined to roles as employees or professionals within existing organisations but should be positioned to establish and expand engineering firms, consulting practices, construction companies, technology businesses and other enterprises capable of competing for public contracts.
The policy is being developed against a backdrop of stark underrepresentation. Women-owned and women-led businesses are estimated to secure only about one per cent of public procurement contracts in Nigeria, despite public procurement accounting for more than 20 per cent of the country’s GDP. The barriers cited by the BPP include tender fee requirements, bank guarantee commitments and documentation demands that disproportionately affect women entrepreneurs. According to the Bureau, these barriers are not necessarily the product of deliberate discrimination but can arise from institutional and structural arrangements that have developed over time.
The President of APWEN, Chinyere Nnenna Igwegbe, said women engineers must be positioned at the centre of Nigeria’s infrastructure development, particularly as the country responds to climate change, energy transition, urbanisation and emerging technologies. “Adaptive systems are, at their core, systems built for resilience, systems that are able to respond to shocks, to changing demand, and to a changing climate. As we pursue net-zero, we are not merely reducing emissions; we are reimagining how energy is generated, how cities are built, and how communities thrive,” Igwegbe said. “Nigeria, and indeed Africa, cannot be a spectator in this transition. We must be designers of it. And women engineers must be at the very centre of that design table, not at its margins”. She called for stronger collaboration among government, industry, academia, professional bodies, development partners and communities, saying infrastructure challenges could not be solved by one institution or profession. “When you support a woman engineer, you do not support one person; you strengthen an entire profession and uplift a whole community,” she said.
Delivering the keynote address, a former Minister of Aviation, Babatunde Omotoba, said Nigeria must begin to design infrastructure as interconnected systems capable of responding to changing conditions. “We cannot continue to design infrastructure only for the circumstances we know today. We have to think about what will happen tomorrow, and even beyond tomorrow,” he said.
The policy has been under development since at least February 2026, when the BPP, the International Trade Centre and Korea Public Procurement Services launched a peer-to-peer learning initiative on affirmative procurement. The BPP said at the time that the policy would be rolled out with capacity-building programmes and a monitoring framework to ensure effective implementation. Korea’s affirmative procurement framework, shared during the February webinar, includes an eight per cent set-aside for women-owned businesses and a five per cent set-aside for youth-led businesses. The BPP’s planned implementation is expected to commence with the 2026 budget cycle, with Adedokun saying procurement officers would be required to redesign procurement plans and bidding documents to reflect the new policy direction. “We have started implementation. As the 2026 budget comes to life, gradual implementation will begin. It will be phased. We will learn, unlearn and relearn as we proceed,” he said.
The policy also includes enforcement mechanisms. Under the framework being developed, women-owned or women-led businesses will be required to demonstrate at least 51 per cent ownership or operational control, as well as basic governance structures. Adedokun stressed that access must go hand in hand with accountability, noting that “a one-person business without governance cannot be trusted with public funds”. Government agencies that fail to comply with affirmative procurement provisions will face penalties, with Adedokun saying compliance would no longer rely on goodwill or discretion. “Failure by government agencies to comply with affirmative procurement provisions will constitute a violation of the law,” he said, adding that “compliance will be enforced, regardless of who is involved”. The BPP is also digitising procurement processes, with Adedokun arguing that online training and digital procurement would eliminate unnecessary physical contact and reduce harassment while ensuring that government opportunities reach eligible businesses directly, without lobbying. “There will be no need to know someone high up to access an opportunity. The entire process will be carried out online, from the comfort of one’s home,” he said.
The push for affirmative procurement has drawn support from development partners and financial institutions. The German Cooperation and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation have backed the Inter-Bau Foundation’s Gender on the Tender forum, which brought together the BPP, the Bank of Industry, Fidelity Bank, SMEDAN and other stakeholders in February 2026. The Minister of Women Affairs, Hajiya Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim, positioned affirmative procurement as a driver of economic expansion rather than a social intervention. “When women-owned businesses are given fair opportunity to compete, the entire economy benefits,” she said. The Bank of Industry has established a dedicated gender business desk to address financing gaps, while Fidelity Bank has highlighted initiatives aimed at equipping women entrepreneurs with the financial knowledge and tools required to compete effectively.
Training programmes are already producing results. Under the Scaling Women’s Economic Empowerment through Affirmative Procurement project, 691 female entrepreneurs have been trained in public procurement processes, with more than 500 women-owned businesses now pursuing procurement opportunities in Kano and Rivers states. At the end of the programme, three women entrepreneurs secured public procurement contracts, with award decisions directly linked to the enhanced competencies gained through the training.
The policy is being introduced amid growing demand for investment in energy and infrastructure, areas in which engineering expertise will be central to Nigeria’s development. For women engineers, the proposed framework could open a new route from professional practice into enterprise ownership. The BPP said the broader objective was to move women-owned businesses beyond marginal participation in the economy and position them as contractors, consultants, suppliers, innovators and employers of labour. As Adedokun put it, greater diversity among public-sector suppliers could broaden the productive base of the economy, support small and medium enterprises, stimulate innovation, strengthen local value chains and increase employment.
📩 Stone Reporters News | 🌍 stonereportersnews.com
✉️ info@stonereportersnews.com | 📘 Facebook: Stone Reporters News | 🐦 X (Twitter): @StoneReportNew | 📸 Instagram: @stonereportersnews
Add comment
Comments