Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) and Fate Foundation, a nonprofit private sector organisation, on Thursday signed two Memorandums of Understanding (MoU) to improve the competitiveness of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) in Nigeria.
Mr Wale Fasanya, Director-General, SMEDAN, during the official signing ceremony in Lagos, stressed the need for continuous research on modalities to drive MSME competitiveness.
He noted that one of the signed MoUs was for both parties to work together on a project called MSME Competitiveness Research, which had been registered.
He said SMEDAN, through the project, would be able to critically analyse the various challenges of MSMEs and proffer solutions that would spur them to greater success.
Fasanya added that Fate Foundation had been in the operation of supporting MSMEs, adding that it would be more enduring while approaching some of the challenges from the private sector angle.
“The idea of the MSME research is for us to be able to gather more information and knowledge about MSMEs based on empirical research, so that we do not just assume that we know it all.
“The second MoU is to foster better partnership and working relationship with Fate Foundation, which has been around for a while and has done a lot of research we want to tap into.
“Fate Foundation has also done a lot of capacity building which we want to tap into, and as a government organisation that strongly believes in Public-Private Partnership (PPP), we know that this move is crucial for the development of the MSME ecosystem,” he said.
The Executive Director, Fate Foundation, Mrs Adenike Adeyemi, said the foundation with over 22 years of experience had been promoting, supporting and educating MSMEs for successful turnover in Nigeria.
Adeyemi said it was important for the foundation to develope strong partnership with government bodies in charge of MSMEs in Nigeria.
She added that Fate Foundation had been working side by side with SMEDAN in the last two years and that the signing of the MoUs was for them to formalise their partnership.
Adeyemi said there were over 40 millions MSMEs and there was need for them to be supported in every way to be competitive and be able to contribute their quota to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the nation.
“There is need to educate MSMEs on data collection to enable the foundation to know how to group them and understand their needs.
“The signing of MoUs will enable both parties to dive deeper from the survey done by the National Bureau of Statistic (NBS) and SMEDAN.
“The MoU will enable Non Governmental Organisations like us who support entrepreneurship in Nigeria to know where to invest our efforts and we will also support guidance at different levels for supporters of MSMEs,” Adeyemi said.
(NAN)
