Trade Minister, UNIDO, SMEDAN Plan MSMEs Academy For Small Business Operators

The Federal Government, through the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment (FMITI) has begun talks with the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) to set up a formal academy to train and equip small business operators with the requisite knowledge to help their day-to-day activities and deepen their contributions to the country’s economic growth.

The Ministry, the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) and UNIDO will develop the framework for the academy and design the implementation plan to kick-start the project.

The idea, mooted by the Minister for Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr. Doris Uzoka-Anite at a meeting with the UNIDO delegation led by Jean Bakole, is to develop the operators in the sector through several strategies that will upgrade their production skills and access to credit, help them with link to the market and deepen their capabilities to service the big industries.

The idea was prompted by the high rate of collapse of small businesses that lack the requisite knowledge to survive Nigeria’s market realities.

“The statistics for success as a startup are very bad. Five out of 100 survive, and a lot of it goes to issues including inability to access credit and the link to the market that needs their services”, stated the Minister.

“We want to help them to overcome market challenges and we will look at different models and consider those models that helped China and India churn out successful start-ups and unicorns. We will adopt and domesticate whatever model that made China and India strong SME and industrial countries,” she added.

The participants at the academy will be selected by SMEDAN, the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment (FMITI), the Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA), the Nigerian Association of Small Medium Enterprises (NASME) and the various UN women groups in different units of the MSME sector.

The training school will be a departure from the current practice of random training programmes that are conceived and run by different institutions including the banks but which in the long run, have no impact on the MSME sector and contribute nothing to the economy.

“Let us have a training school, a business finishing school where our SMEs will come in, even if it is for a three-month programme covering principles of accounting, marketing and other areas of which they must show a good understanding, to get a certificate and also qualify for access to credit”.

“We will partner with existing schools like the Lagos Business School and universities to design the curriculum and also form a consortium of partners that will include SMEDAN, the Bank of Industry and other organisations that can help to fund the training school.

“That way, I am sure we will have trained MSMEs that can lead this country to real economic growth”, the Minister noted

Bakole stated that UNIDO will play a huge role in the project having attended to several SMEs in the past using several tools like it did during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The UN body will employ a strategy similar to what it used to identify 174 sanitiser manufacturers across the country which it trained for two weeks and provided with equipment during the pandemic. It will also support them for a year,” he said.

The UNIDO delegation at the meeting included Mr. Reuben Bamidele, Mr. Osuji Otu, Mr. Oluyomi Laniyan, Ms Helen Iji and Ms Emem Umana.