The Lagos COVID-19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus (CARES) Program is a state-level intervention that seeks to mitigate the local effects of the COVID-19 worldwide pandemic at the state-level, by protecting the livelihoods of existing and newly poor and vulnerable households and supporting the recovery of local economic activity especially among MSMEs.
The program consists of 3 Results Areas (RAs) as defined below:
✓ RA1 – Focuses on Social Protection
✓ RA2 – Focuses on Agriculture and;
✓ RA3 – Focuses on Micro Small and Medium scale enterprises (MSMEs)
The Grants falls under three categories;
A. Credit Grant: This provides credit grants to co-finance up to 40% of new loans given to businesses by qualified financial institutions after the onset of the COVID-19 crisis.
Micro Enterprises: Up to #100,000
SMEs: Up to 2.5M
B. Operations Grant: This grant is to Support Operational Expenditure after the onset of Covid-19. This grant aims to incentivize MSEs to reach pre- COVID 19 level of employment. The grant would cover operational costs.
Operations grants for MSMEs that cover up to 50% of any verifiable/ documented monthly operational cost for 6 months including but not limited to staff salaries; documented utilities; documented private security expenses.
Micro Enterprises: Up to #150,000
SMEs: Up to #2.5M
C. IT Enhancement Grant: The IT Enhancement Grant offers financing to MSMEs to increase their capacity through the adoption of technology.
