MSME DEVELOPMENT AND LINKAGES

PROJECT OVERVIEW:

PIND’s Business Linkages program seeks to promote a business environment in which local small and medium sized enterprises in the Niger Delta can compete in domestic, regional and global markets and can contribute significantly to wealth and job creation in both the Niger Delta as well as nationally.

Small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) in the Niger Delta region face a host of challlenges that militate against their competitiveness and potential. Some of these include: poor technical and business, management skills, poor access to finance and weak access to market information, particularly large institutional buyers. We did our research, and learned that improving capacity among local SMEs is critical to developing an enabling environment in which markets can grow and thrive.

As part of work to make small businesses in the Niger Delta more competitive and profitable, PIND’s Business Linkages team trains business service providers (BSPs, as we like to call them) to improve the quality of support that small businesses in the Niger Delta receive.

These BSPs have worked to help small businesses access loans, provided business advisory services, trained businesses on record-keeping, established market linkages and linked businesses to assistance from the Technical Assistance Facility (TAF), which PIND co-funds to support the region’s small businesses.

Our BSPs are great, because they have been absolutely essential to improving SMEs’ access to capital. The Technical Assistance Fund (TAF), an initiative set up by PIND, provides technical support to small and medium-scale enterprises through PIND-trained business service providers and helps raise awareness of SMEs in the region on the benefits of using business service providers to bolster their profitability and efficiency.

OUR AIM:
  • To establish alliances, networks and partnerships for leveraging funds, improve market access of small businesses and strengthen the business support environment for local SMEs.

OUR APPROACH:

To make small businesses in the Niger Delta more competitive and profitable, PIND’s Business Linkages team strategically:

  • Trains BSPs to ensure that their clients receive the best linkages to new markets, linkages to finance, business advisory services, and general business upgrading and training services.
  • Utilizes the Technical Assistance Facility (TAF) instrument to support some SMEs with funding constraints, improve working capital, upgrade their technologies, and afford consulting services.
  • Recommends SMEs with viable business propositions to partners for funding.
PROJECT UPDATES
SUCCESS STORIES

2 Comments

  1. I am a PIND trained PSp in Abia State.One of our farmers has a well equipped feed Mill but lacks fund to purchase bulk raw materials.

    Abia State farmers desperately need off-takers for poultry meat and eggs.
    Thanks.

    • Hello Chukwudike,

      Thank you for contacting PIND. Kindly send an email with your enquiry to info@pindfoundation.org where you will be directed to our Poultry Market Systems Advisor for a response.

      All our best wishes,
      PIND.

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