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The World Bank has lowered its economic growth forecast for Nigeria in 2023 to 3.2 per cent from 3.3 per cent, citing slowdown in global growth, the war in Ukraine and including declining demand from China for commodities produced in Africa.

Citing similar conditions, the World Bank also projected that the Sub-Saharan African region will record a lower economic growth of 3.3 per cent in 2022 from 4.1 per cent recorded in 2021.

Consequently, the World Bank called on the governments in the Sub-Saharan African region to urgently implement measures to restore macro-economic stability and protect the poor in a context of slow growth, high inflation.

The forecasts were contained in the October edition of the World Bank’s Africa’s Pulse, a biannual analysis of the near-term regional macroeconomic outlook, and economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

Highlighting the growth factors for Nigeria’s economy, the World Bank said: “The Nigerian economy is projected to slow in 2023, down to 3.2 per cent (from 3.3 per cent) and persist at this level the following year.

Growth will be supported mainly by the rebound in private consumption prompted mostly by accommodative monetary policy as inflationary pressures subside.

“Private consumption expenditure is forecast to decrease this year and grow next year. This performance will likely continue in 2024.

On the production side, growth in 2023 will be supported by industry (with the growth of 5.1 per cent) with the mega-refinery project.”

On its growth forecast for the Sub-Saharan African region, the World Bank said: “Economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is set to decelerate from 4.1% in 2021 to 3.3% in 2022, a downward revision of 0.3 percentage points since April’s Pulse forecast, mainly as a result of a slowdown in global growth, including flagging demand from China for commodities produced in Africa.

On the factors undermining economic growth in SSA, the World Bank said: “The war in Ukraine is exacerbating already high inflation and weighing on economic activity by depressing both business investments and household consumption. As of July 2022, 29 of 33 countries in SSA with available information had inflation rates over 5% while 17 countries had double-digit inflation.

The Director General and Chief Executive officer of the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), Mr Olawale Tunde Fasanya has disclosed that his agency is committed to the growth and improvement of MSME’S in the nation.

According to him, The Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) are globally acknowledged as the oil required for lubricating the engine of socio-economic transformation of any nation.

The MSME sector is strategically positioned to absorb up to 80% of jobs, improve per capita income, increase value addition to raw materials supply, improve export earnings and step-up capacity utilisation in key industries.

The Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) represent one of the most important sectors of our economy. Of the 39.6 million NMSMEs (as at 31st December, 2020) in Nigeria that employs over 62.5 million people (80.2% of the national labour force) and contributes about 46.31% to the GDP and 6.21% to exports, about 38.4 million are micro-enterprises (96.9%).

Thus, growth in this sector is directly correlated with growth in the economy as a whole and in the level of employment throughout Nigeria.

One of the most critical challenges confronting us as a nation is how to ensure that our strong macro-economic performances translate to improvements in the living standards of our citizens and growth in the MSMEs sub-sector.”

The sector is structured across other key sectors, including Agriculture, Mining and Quarrying, Building and Construction, Manufacturing, Solid Minerals, etc, and thus has strong linkages with the entire range of economic activities in the country.

 They play a pivotal role through several pathways that go beyond job creation. They are growth-supporting sectors that not only contribute significantly to improve living standards, but also bring substantial local capital formation and are responsible for driving innovation and competition in developing economies.

Governments at all levels have undertaken initiatives to promote the growth International Journal of Innovative Development & Policy Studies and development of MSMEs.

The general perspective is that MSMEs are seen as accelerating the attainment of broad socio-economic objectives, including poverty reduction, employment generation, wealth creation, among others.

Meanwhile, for us at SMEDAN, we are more concerned about how you can run your vocation as a business. That is, even after acquiring a vocation, how do you run it successfully as a business and that is where we step in. My analogy is that the world has gone beyond the era of “teach me how to fish”, what is more important now is “what do you do with the fish”?

The Agency is also saddled with the responsibility of contributing to the attainment of every policy of the Federal government of Nigeria and the Cluster Development Approach of the Ministry of Trade and Investment.

SMEDAN’s activities are geared towards building capacity for people to run their business profitably. You can be a graduate of Medicine or a qualified doctor does not mean you can run a hospital, profitably and sustainably.

SMEDAN provide the support to put young and old entrepreneurs on a right path to success and by extension grow the nation’s economy.

As part of its unwavering commitment to job creation, wealth creation, poverty alleviation and food security and entrepreneurship training in Nigeria, recently, SMEDAN, in partnership with the Prisons Fellowship of Nigeria, the Nigerian Correctional Service and the Covenant University organized a training programme which culminated in the graduation and matriculation ceremony of the inmates of the medium security prisons in Kirikiri, Apapa, Lagos.

Also, Fasanya disclosed that “In an effort to ensure a credible access to more affordable finance for MSMEs in Nigeria, the Agency is partnering with an NGO, the African Centre for Global Entrepreneurial Leadership (ACGEL) to implement the Leadership Entrepreneurial Game Show (LEGS) where successful participants will be given N5,000,000.00 (Five million naira only) worth of grants and tools.

The game show is on-going now and all existing and potential entrepreneurs are encouraged to log into www.legs.africa for free registration. You may be the next lucky winner.

The Agency is also partnering with the Bank of Agriculture (BOA), Jaiz Bank and Sterling Bank to implement the Matching Fund Programme for Micro and Small Enterprises towards increasing access to finance.

This intervention is delivering credit, as a promotional mechanism to enhance enterprise output, competitiveness and job creation. Prospective beneficiaries can have access to loans between N2.1 million and N5.0 million.

This programme had been executed in the following States: FCT, Kaduna, Oyo, Plateau, Kano, Imo and Edo and are set for disbursement at the moment. While enterprises from Katsina, Kogi, Nasarawa,

Niger, Jigawa, Bauchi and Adamawa States have submitted their business plans and awaiting processing.

Very soon, the programme will commence in Ondo, Osun, Lagos, Cross River, Anambra, Delta and Enugu States.

The portal for the application will open by the end of August, 2022. All suitably qualified MSEs in the agribusiness sub-sector are to apply via the SMEDAN website www.smedan.gov.ng by clicking SMEDAN/STERLING matching fund programme icon.

Those of you that will go into agribusiness can also benefit from this initiative.