The Enterprise Development Centre (EDC) of Pan-Atlantic University, in collaboration with Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), has created a platform, an Exclusive Networking Event, capable of connecting agricultural small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to key players in the sector.
This will assist financial institutions, business development service providers, and government officials, thereby discovering strategies to fund, grow, and scale their businesses.
Titled: “Funding the Future: Powering Nigeria’s Agric-SMEs,” the recent Lagos event brought together agric business stakeholders from around the country. Its goal was to connect them with key players in the agriculture sector and provide strategies for funding, growth and scaling their businesses.
The two-day session featured insightful panel discussions, funding opportunities, strategies, and success stories from some of the most successful food and agric SMEs, and high-value networking with some financial institutions and investors.
Reaffirming the EDC commitment towards supporting SMEs in the country, the Head of Alumni Relations and Support Services at EDC, Dr. Nnenna Ugwu, stressed that the centre is committed to helping agric-SMEs in the country.
“Today, we are utilising Business Development Service Providers (BDSPs) to support small businesses on the AGRA platform and explore how they can be funded. And when we mean funding, it is funding that works, funding for the future, and sustainable funding.”
Speaking about the partnership with AGRA, Ugwu said: “EDC is an umbrella body that commits in totality its life in building, hand-holding, and training entrepreneurs and small businesses. We train them, we hand-hold them, we try to create an environment for them to thrive; therefore, we are committed to doing everything for SMEs.”
The Country Director for AGRA, Dr Rufus Idris, said: “We’re here today to see how to strengthen the ecosystem of Business Development Service Providers (BDSP), and also strengthen service provision to agric SMEs.
“We’re trying to see how that space can work better for us, ensuring that there’s a strong connection between the SMEs that are trying to grow, expand, stabilise, or sustain their operations, and linking that to getting the right kind of support from the business support services providers.”
Importantly, he stressed that Nigeria aims to increase agricultural output, boost food production, and feed its growing population, while also reducing post-harvest losses.
One of the participants, Principal Consultant/CEO at Doctor Fish Agric Consult, Israel Yusuf, thanked EDC for the opportunity provided.
“This is a timely intervention, bringing together the different actors in the value chain to have a conversation on the challenges with a focus on solutions. EDC is an enterprise-driven organisation, an enterprise-focused organisation that believes that every challenge has a solution.”
