The Director-General of the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), Charles Odii, has called on ECOWAS member states to actively implement the ECOWAS Small Business Coalition’s (ESBC) programmes.
Odii made this appeal during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Praia, Cape Verde, on Wednesday, at a meeting involving ESBC presidents and stakeholders from West African countries.
The event, organised by ESBC in collaboration with ECOWAS, aims to empower West African Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) to drive subregional economic growth and integration. It also seeks to promote gender-inclusive trade policies and prepare member states to leverage the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and the ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme (ETLS).
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Implementation responsibility lies with member states
According to Odii, while ECOWAS has provided the necessary frameworks, including articles and laws for the growth of MSMEs, the onus of implementation rests with individual member states.
“Right now, there are conversations around access to credit, around access to land for development of SMEs, around access to finance. But this would not be implemented by ECOWAS as an organisation. Rather, it will be implemented by the member states of ECOWAS. So, we need the member states to take action and key into this by going out there and ensuring that the ecosystem has cohesion and collaboration,” he said.
He noted that the gathering provided ESBC presidents the opportunity to collectively address challenges facing MSMEs across the subregion.
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Similar challenges across the region
Odii highlighted that the challenges confronting MSMEs in various West African countries are often similar, ranging from financing issues to corporate governance, trade, investment, and communication.
“The challenges that affect small businesses in Ghana are very similar to those that affect small businesses in Nigeria. Challenges that affect small businesses in Togo are very similar to the ones found in Guinea-Bissau, Burkina Faso, and so on,” he said.
He expressed optimism about the future of MSMEs in West Africa, describing them as “the engines of progress in the subregion.”
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Nigeria’s MSME landscape
The director-general revealed that Nigeria alone has no fewer than 39.65 million MSMEs, adding that 13 out of 15 member states attended the meeting, with discussions focused on fostering MSME development across the West African subregion.
He reiterated that mutual collaboration among member states is essential for success and urged them to harness industrialisation opportunities, utilise trade frameworks, and attract investments that could transform challenges into growth.
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Harnessing opportunities through collaboration
Odii urged ECOWAS member states to take advantage of the AfCFTA and the ETLS, stressing the importance of collective effort in tackling issues of identity, payment systems, data access, capacity development, and infrastructure.
“I think that the future is very bright for small businesses here because one of the things that we are doing here is actually to deliberate on identity. We’re also deliberating on payment and on how to facilitate payment from different countries into another. We’re deliberating on data, on how we can access data and use data to make informed decisions for the citizens in the different ecosystems. And lastly, we’re also deliberating on capacity development and infrastructure – infrastructure that will help facilitate this and help member countries and for export,” Odii said.
