Nigeria's Impact Investors Foundation launches scorecard to track $8bn inclusive capital roadmap

The Impact Investors Foundation (IIF) hosted the 4th Gender Impact Investment Summit (GIIS) in Lagos, positioning it as the primary execution platform for Nigeria's $8 billion inclusive capital roadmap targeting women, youth, and persons with disabilities.

The summit unveiled an Inclusive Capital Scorecard and a Gender Equity and Social Inclusion (GESI) Baseline Report tools designed to standardise how investors measure gender-lens investing outcomes, including credit access, enterprise growth, and geographic distribution of capital.

IIF CEO Etemore Glover highlighted that while women own nearly 40% of Nigerian businesses, they receive a disproportionately small share of formal credit, and the GESI Baseline Report is intended to identify these gaps and hold stakeholders accountable beyond symbolic commitments.

The launch of the Inclusive Capital Scorecard signals a shift from advocacy to enforceable accountability in Nigeria's inclusive finance space, meaning investors and institutions that have signed onto inclusive capital commitments will now face structured reporting requirements on capital deployed, jobs created, and enterprise outcomes.

For Nigerian fund managers, development finance institutions, and private equity players with gender-lens mandates, this scorecard is likely to become a compliance and due diligence reference point within the next 12 to 18 months as regulatory and institutional frameworks align around it.

Women-led SMEs and youth-owned businesses stand to benefit most directly if the scorecard succeeds in redirecting formal credit flows toward underserved segments.