Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise Project

closed

The Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) Project in Nigeria aims to increase the performance and employment levels of MSMEs in selected non-oil industry sub-sectors and in three targeted states of the country. To achieve this, the project in Nigeria will: (i) develop and strengthen the capacity of local intermediaries to deliver financial and non-financial services to MSMEs; (ii) reduce selected investment climate barriers that constrain MSME performance; (iii) mobilize, via (i) and (ii), increased private investments in MSMEs, and intermediaries. The project has the following five components: Component 1) will seek to deepen and broaden the financial services available to MSMEs. This will be achieved through the provision of grants to assist qualifying institutions and companies to provide up to four types of commercially sustainable financial services to MSMEs. These grants will be used to finance technical and capacity building assistance to the providers. Component 2) will seek to develop the market for business development services (BDS) by supporting intermediaries to respond to unmet MSME demand for BDS focusing on the three target States. This will be done through the provision of grants and technical assistance to qualifying institutions and companies to develop products and to strengthen their operations in order to be able to respond commercially and over a sustained period to market demand. Component 3) Technical and capacity building support will be provided through the IDA credit to assist in the following initiatives of the Government of Nigeria: (a) Registration Reform, (b) Commercial Dispute Resolution, (c) Leasing services, (d) Credit Bureau, and (e) Secured Transaction System. Component 4) IDA resources will be allocated to provide selected Federal and target State Government Agencies with MSME development responsibilities the opportunity to access global best practices. Specifically, advisory services would be available to provide best practice capacity-building to institutions with policy and related responsibilities for the MSME sector. Component 5) IDA funds will be allocated to finance the execution, reporting, review (semi-annual and mid-term) and monitoring of project components and independent evaluations of selected issues, particularly through case studies. Provisions will also be made for equipment and operational costs and other financial, audit, training and consultant assignments as required and laid out in the approved annual procurement plan.