Two international organizations, the Pro-poor Growth and Promotion of Employment in Nigeria Programme- SEDIN, implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit, GIZ-SEDIN and GOPA, have said micro, small and medium enterprises will develop and expand if stakeholders partner and engage more.
The speakers from both groups gave the advice, at the MSMEs development ecosystem seminar titled, ‘Gaining momentum through partnerships’.
The team leader, GOPA, Mr Peik Bruhns, said that asides from funding, entrepreneurs needed support from other actors for business growth, and collaborations would strengthen the ecosystem.
He said, ‘‘The entrepreneur sector deserves more support in all spheres, access to the market, record keeping, technology, and other supports mechanism. We are one of the actors, providing support for GIZ. Our key message is for us to understand nobody can do it alone. We all need each other once we are able to embrace each other, we will now strengthen the ecosystem.’’
The Executive Director, Hope Builders Foundation, Mrs Folayemisi Adu, added that the event had the aim of establishing sustainable platforms for the ecosystem actors to thrive and how their operations would benefit the MSME space in Nigeria.
Adu said, ‘‘The growth and development of MSME into sustainable business depends largely on the business environment they operate in. The MSME development ecosystem seeks to achieve this by ensuring relevant actors constantly engage and come up with suitable conditions for ease of doing business.’’
The Head of Component, Economic Education and Entrepreneurship, Oladoyin Olawaiye, noted that GIZ-SEDIN should provide necessary training for MSMEs actors, saying they needed the links, and opportunity to upscale their business and sustain it.
Olawaiye said, ‘‘We want them to interact more. Ecosystem actors should work within themselves and interact more to be collaborators for the betterment of the business. ’’
National Senior MSME Development Expert, Mr Ismaeel Lawal, said, ‘‘We are here to develop an ecosystem that will proffer solutions to some of the things mentioned like access to finance, market, technology, policies not favoring MSMEs. It is a deliberate effort to bring together all the actors to encourage the ecosystem to see opportunities. They can’t keep operating in silos, they need to partner. ’’
