By Mark Longyen

The Director-General, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), Charles Odii, has urged ECOWAS member states to actively implement the ECOWAS Small Business Coalition’s (ESBC) programmes.

Odii gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Praia, Cape Verde, on Wednesday, at a meeting of West African countries’ ESBC presidents and stakeholders.

NAN reports that 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 aims to promote gender-inclusive trade policies across member states, and prepare them to leverage the opportunities of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), and the ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme (ETLS).

Odii said ECOWAS had done the necessary thing by producing the articles and the laws required for the MSMEs to thrive, stressing that it was now left for the individual member states to ensure implementation.

“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 said that the gathering was an opportunity for the ESBC presidents to consider the challenges facing them collectively, with a view to holistically tackling them as a subregion.

“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.

“So we are looking at these challenges, and many of them border on financing; many of them border on corporate governance, trade and investment and many of the challenges border  on communication,” he said.

He expressed optimism about the future of MSMEs in West Africa, describing the enterprises as “the engines of progress in the subregion”.

The director general urged them to harness industrialisation possibilities, leverage trade frameworks, and ignite investments that could transform challenges into opportunities.

He disclosed that Nigeria alone has no fewer than 39,654,844 million MSMEs, saying that 13 out of 15 member states attended the meeting, with the conversation tailored to foster MSMEs’ development across the West African subregion.

Odii emphasised that mutual collaboration among member states is critical to achieving success.

He, therefore, urged them to leverage the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), and the ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme (ETLS).

“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. (NAN) (www.nannews.ng)

Edited by Emmanuel Yashim