Germany Boosts Entrepreneurship in Nigeria With N4.2 Billion

  GIZ – German Agency for International Cooperation has set aside 20 million euros to promote Nigeria’s micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) for the next three years. Mr. Thomas Kirsch, GIZ Country Director, announced this last week while presenting the second phase of the Pro-poor Growth and Promotion of Employment in Nigeria programme, SEDIN in Abuja. He said that the funds allocated by the German Ministry for Economic Development and Cooperation, BMZ for a three-year extension until March 2017, would be especially spent on the agricultural sector and other value chains such as housing and energy among others. He said that the programme will also cover vocational training in different trades at federal, state and local levels especially in Niger, Ogun and Plateau States. He recalled that GIZ has been supporting Nigeria in its business environment reforms through SEDIN’s funding for the past 10 years with the goal of increasing income and employment with MSMEs through financial sector reform, value chain development and economic integration. Mr. Christian Widmann, Head of SEDIN Programme said that SEDIN would continue to partner with various public and private sector stakeholders at all levels of government in order to increase its focus on addressing the needs of MSMEs. He said that the four areas of the programme intervention would include; supporting financial system development, creating enabling business environments, trade policy and facilitation and value chain promotion. He listed the objectives of the programme as sustainable economic development, renewable energy and energy efficiency, sustainable cocoa business, competitive African rice initiative and support of economic integration into ECOWAS. He made it known that the financial system development unit of the programme’s approach would improve the regulatory environment for microfinance and activities to foster financial literacy and consumer protection in the financial sector. Mr. Widmann added that the business enabling environment reforms would enhance the regulatory and institutional environment for MSMEs at local, state and federal levels while trade and facilitation would reduce administrative hurdles to domestic and intra-regional trade by removing physical barriers and supporting border management reforms as well as promoting Nigerian exports into ECOWAS sub-region among others.