UNIDO launches ITPO to connect Nigerian MSMEs with global counterparts
The United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) has launched the Investment Technology Development Office (ITPO) in Nigeria, with a view to giving micro, small and medium Enterprises(MSMEs) a ‘lifeline support’.
With this, UNIDO would interlink MSMEs with their global counterparts using its platforms to advance their businesses.
The ITPO system interlinks businesses across the globe using a structured technological platforms.
Hashim Hussein Suleiman, head, UNID0 ITPO, told BusinessDay that the programme was already up and running in 48 countries, including Moscow, Bahrain, Uruguay and Rome.
Suleima said Nigeria’s strategic position and open market informed why it was the first place to be launched in Africa.
“We have the technologies and the techniques on how to develop business plans and how to develop business capacity on having access to finance for MSMEs in Nigeria. Nigeria has an open market that attracts huge investments in Africa; that is why we have to launch the first ITPO in Africa here,” Hussein said.
In Bahrain, a country of 1.2 million people, the ITPO has generated up to $2 billion within five years. Nigeria with its open market and strategy could quadruple this, said Hussein.
“What we are doing currently is looking at the sectors that could create jobs and advance them technologically. MSMEs are largest employers of labour globally,” he added.
Chuma Ezedimma, officer-in-charge at UNIDO, told Businessday that “one of the biggest challenges we have is moving micro enterprises to formal stages.”
Ezedimma said the other challenge was how to upgrade technologies in existing enterprises, adding that how to match-make entrepreneurial people with the people outside the country was equally key.
“The ITPO would create a system for more entrepreneurs to interact using in an eco system, since technology platforms would link them up globally. We are also working in tandem with the Nigerian government since what we are doing is linked up to the Nigerian Industrial Revolution Plan,” Ezedimma explained.
“We at the UNIDO have been working on the non-oil sector since we have been operating in the country. What we have done is to identify those sectors that are mass employers of labour, working closely with the Nigerian Industrial Revolution Plan (NIRP), which has a lot to do with the agro, mining, auto policy, textiles, among others.
“What we are doing currently is looking at the sectors that could create jobs and advance it technologically. MSMEs are largest employers of labour globally. It is the MSMEs that the banks like to work with,” he further said.
Adebisi Olumodumo, head of the newly established ITPO in Nigeria, told BusinessDay that the objective of the office was to push for attraction of investment inflow into the non-oil sector, using a technological assistance.
“We are mainly going to work with the MSMEs. As you know our MSMEs cannot access international market. This platform working with UNIDO and European Union (EU) would assist our MSMEs in raising their businesses to global status,” Olumodumo said.
Harrison Edeh