The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency (SMEDAN) has launched a Conditional Grant Scheme (CGS) for about 2000 small businesses in Lagos.
At the launch of the scheme in Lagos recently, the Director General and Chief Executive of SMEDAN, Dikko Umaru Radda, while addressing attendees, said the micro enterprises sub-sector is a critical sub-sector in the Nigerian enterprise development space. He said the sector collectively accounts for a vast majority of the enterprises in Nigeria and also accounts for the highest number of jobs created in the economy.
“In terms of employment, the total number of persons employed by micro enterprises in 2010 was 15,641,460, representing 90.41 per cent of total number of employed persons. In 2013, the total number of persons employed by micro enterprises was 57,836,391, representing 96.88 per cent of total number of persons employed.
“However, it is important to note that over 90 percent of the micro enterprises are informal and populated by people at the bottom of the pyramid. Hence, the need for the agency to conceptualise a flagship programme referred to as Conditional Grant Scheme (CGS) for micro enterprises in Nigeria,” he said.
According to Radda, the justification for a special entrepreneurship/vocational development intervention for entrepreneurs at the bottom of the pyramid cannot be overemphasised based on the need to graduate informal enterprises to the formal sector, industrialise the nation, develop the rural economy, stem youth restiveness and unemployment and create the platform for sustainable economic growth and development in Nigeria.