Member Spotlight: Tolulope Babajide

FinEquity Africa: Tell us a little bit about yourself. A fun fact? Something that might surprise most people? Your superpower? 

Tolulope Babajide: I am an avid hiker. It is an activity that gives more than what is expected – I get to experience nature at its best while building my own resilience. There was a time when I hiked every weekend, and I remember how it made me stay incredibly focused and disciplined. One thing about hiking is even when you are tired, you are spurred to keep on moving.

FinEquity Africa: What originally drew you to the women’s financial inclusion and economic empowerment sector? What has kept you here?

Tolulope Babajide: In my college years, I studied English and Literary Studies, and my early career included working as a copywriter and journalist. There, I learnt the craft of words and how they could be used to change narratives.  I was privileged to attend an advocacy event on female genital mutilation in Nigeria and that I would say led me to a whole new career – Gender and Development.

My interest in women's economic empowerment grew while working as a programme officer for the White Ribbon Alliance International in Nigeria. I implemented a project that advocated for increased state government funding in Pre-eclampsia prevention and management in Nigeria's Ebonyi and Cross Rivers states.

During research and engagement with stakeholders (including pregnant mothers), we discovered that women lacked the household decision-making power to make their own healthcare decisions. While working with these women, I found that many of them were not economically empowered, and cultural norms were also a huge barrier. There was a clear link between women's healthcare choices and their economic status. Making health-care decisions was heavily influenced by their economic status. 

Ever since, I have dedicated my life's work to better understanding how I can contribute significantly to women's economic empowerment in Africa.

FinEquity Africa: Any current projects you’re working on/or recently worked on that you find particularly exciting/engaging?

Tolulope Babajide: I am grateful for the work I do at FSD Africa as the Gender Network Manager where I work primarily on the FSD Network Gender Collaborative Programme. My work cuts across diverse thematic areas such as Agriculture Livelihoods, Digital Financial Services, Climate Finance, and Sustainable Finance, all with one mandate - leveraging financial services to improve women’s lives and livelihoods in Africa. 

I work on a lot of exciting and impactful gender intentional and transformative projects across Africa. One recent project I was involved with was a study to understand Uganda’s tomato value chain conducted by FSD Uganda and FSD Network Gender Collaborative Programme. The research sought to identify economic opportunities for women farmers within the value chain. Agriculture accounts for around 25% of Uganda’s overall GDP, with women constituting over half of the agricultural workforce. However, women have limited access to finance, land, and other resources.

We found that existing social norms on land ownership typically limit women’s productivity to subsistence. In addition, women living in male headed households were often seen as ‘working to support households’ with little or no remuneration as compared to their counterparts in female headed households.

I also enjoy doing work around sustainable finance, where I was involved in developing a Gender bonds toolkit that provides guidance for the design and issuance of Gender bonds in Africa. I believe that the $42 billion funding gap for female entrepreneurs in Sub-Saharan Africa is unacceptable, and closing it will necessitate the use of new and innovative financial instruments such as gender bonds, blended finance, and other special financing vehicles.

FinEquity Africa: What are your top priorities for the remainder of 2024 (and beyond) for your work?

Tolulope Babajide: While we celebrated several milestones last year in terms of women’s economic empowerment (climate negotiations, increased gender lens investing, improved and ambitious gender inclusive policies), there are persisting challenges that need our actions. I am optimistic that 2024 will be a year for accelerated actions on gender/climate/health nexus, unpaid care, women’s leadership. Personally, I remain focused on designing more contextualized solutions for women in improving their lives and livelihoods, advocating for increased women’s agency in Africa.  

FinEquity Africa: What can our members connect with you about/what can they ask you about?

Tolulope Babajide: I'm passionate about creating awareness on issues that would not ordinarily make it into mainstream media. I raise awareness about women's economic empowerment, women's financial inclusion, digital financial services, agricultural livelihoods, climate finance, SME/MSME financing, and sustainable finance. I would love to connect with other community members around these topics as well as on design and implementation of gender transformative initiatives.

FinEquity Africa: What role does FinEquity play in your work? Where do you see value in this community? How has being a member shaped your work?

Tolulope Babajide: I am immensely grateful to communities like FinEquity and CGAP, for providing me with a solid foundation of knowledge when I first began working as an expert in women's economic empowerment in Nigeria.

I remember clearly when I started my career in women’s economic empowerment, a dear friend of mine would send me tons of knowledge briefs, blogposts, and learning briefs from CGAP. In those early days, I would voraciously read through all the reading materials and try as much as possible to adapt its inexhaustible learnings to the projects I implement.

When I look back, I believe those were very strong foundations that FinEquity help me to build. So much growth has happened since then, but one thing has been constant- FinEquity is still my go-to place when I need information and knowledge building.