How more funding, inclusion can revive SMEs, informal sector

Micro Enterprises at the Bank of Industry (BOI), Ms Toyin Adeniji, highlighted some BOI interventions, like reducing interest rates by two per cent among others.

She said existing initiatives like the Government’s Economic Empowerment Programme (GEEP) served as a channel for effective targeting of some of these interventions.

A private sector operator and CEO of Bankly, Ms Tomi Adejana, said digitization, collaboration and data are key in securing the informal sector. She said Bankly, a digital solution, helped users to fall back to their savings during the pandemic peak in 2020 while shielding them from fraud, giving them insurance coverage and access to the formal sector.

Dr Godwin Ehigiamusoe, a former CEO, LAPO Microfinance Bank, said learning from the

COVID-19 effects, there should be institutionalised platform for government’s interventions focusing on both MSMEs access to credit and areas like micro-insurance for healthcare, educational support, both of which require huge expenditure from lean financial resources by households.

The Chief Impact Officer, Rendra Foundation, Ms Onyeka Akpaida, said the pandemic affected more women in the informal sector.

The event moderator and Policy Lead, Sustainable and Inclusive Digital Financial Services initiative (SIDFS), Prof. Olawale Ajai, said interventions for the informal sector should focus both on financial inclusion and economic inclusion as they present an opportunity to fast track development with good policies.