By Mark Longyen

West African entrepreneurs under the aegis of ECOWAS Small Business Coalition(ESBC) say their collaboration with ECOWAS is crucial to achieving individual, group and subregional economic integration goals.

The entrepreneurs spoke in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sidelines of ESBC’s inaugural exhibition and workshop in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.

According to them, collaboration will ensure positive interface between the ECOWAS body and entrepreneur towards meeting regional and global standards and practices in their businesses.

Mrs Amina Suleiman, CEO, MINALADI Enterprises, a Nigerian fashion designer and manufacturer, who was appointed an ESBC Ambassador, said that collaboration was their strength.

“That coming together, uniting, forming a coalition, is helping the SMEs to grow and I believe there’s going to be so many millionaires emerging from this event.

“I’ve learned a lot; from the lectures to meeting different African countries to understand that there’s actually unity when it comes to Africans coming together. We keep getting stronger when we are together.

“The programme is like an eye-opener for me. I’ve seen so many hardworking people. I’ve seen people that I’ve learned from and I’ll keep learning,” she said.

Mrs Sylviane Kone, from Ivory Coast, a former ECOWAS Director, Human Resources, now Managing Director, AGS Group, an Abidjan-based food processing consultancy firm, stressed the need for the entrepreneurs to collaborate.

She said that the essence of ESBC was to facilitate economic integration by harmonising the processing of MSMEs’ goods to produce standard products.

“We have to be one, we have to standardise our products if we want competitiveness.

“Africa with all the 15 member states of ECOWAS, like Mali are here, Niger, Burkina Faso are also here.

“We have to have a strong Africa. We can even export from our 15 member states. This is how we can achieve the goal of success in Africa,” she said.

Mahamadou Kinta, CEO, Kinta Enterprises and President, SMEs coalition in Mali, said the event was an opportunity to bring West African entrepreneurs together to agree on business models that would culminate in growing their economies.

Kinta noted that Mali was currently facing serious security challenges, which inhibits the free movement of goods and people, stressing that such was inimical to economic integration.

He urged ECOWAS and the African Union to resolve the issues because they could block the process of subregional integration.

“This event is about strengthening businesses in our region, so we have to come together. That’s why we appreciate this initiative coming from ECOWAS so much.

“We have this problem in our country, our goods and people cannot travel freely because they have so many troubles in the borders.

“I think this is like a tool to make all the small businesses of our countries come together to empower their businesses to grow faster and move the continent very fast,” he said.

Mrs Assetou Djibo, an entrepreneur from Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, said collaboration among ESBC members was crucial to boosting their economic growth and achieving the objectives of ECOWAS economic integration.

“We are here to take action to fight against the forces inhibiting the growth of SMEs in West Africa.

“Collaboration among our members is critical to achieving the ECOWAS goal of economic integration,” she said.

For Dr Ebiekure Eradiri, President of the All Africa Association of MSMEs, said standardisation of MSME products by ensuring that they are “concurrent, uniform and acceptable” across the subregion, was key to the ESBCs success.

“While we appreciate the efforts and the inputs, standardisation is key.

“So, for businesses where SMEs are able to engage products across the West African region, we must be sure that our standards are concurrent, uniform and acceptable among ourselves.

“What you make of your goods for it to be acceptable in another country in West Africa is dependent on the rules and regulations of that country and we are saying that we must also think about a universal framework,” he said.

Ms Loido Monteiro from Cape Verde, CEO, Smart Cities Project, and ESBC Vice President, said the coalition aimed at collaborating to bring their products to new markets within ECOWAS and the world.

She said that through partnerships with other companies, they would grow their markets and companies, create jobs and produce ECOWAS’ future millionaires.

“We already have some products that we are ready to sell and we have countries that want to buy, so we are in a good state.

“While we have challenges of transport, and finance, we believe if we are together we can resolve these challenges and do business together, with ECOWAS’ support,” she said.(NAN) (www.nannews.ng)

Edited by Ismail Abdulaziz