The Nigeria Competitive Project, NICOP, commissioned by the German BMZ and co-funded by the European Union under the West African Competitiveness envelope, other stakeholders and the Federal Government are collaborating to set up an initiative to establish an impact investment wholesaler fund in Nigeria.

Nigeria Competitive Project, NICOP said the aim of this initiative is to solve the challenge of lack of access to government fund which poses problems for social, impact funds in Naira denominated to consider smaller tickets sizes to support the growth of SMEs with market potentials for scale and large-scale impact in areas such as renewable energy, accessible/quality education, healthcare, affordable housing.

This was revealed Thursday in Abuja at a validation workshop on the framework/roadmap to establish a wholesale impact investment fund in Nigeria.

The Head of Project NICOP Ana Vinambres – in her opening remarks said the initiative is aimed at attracting private sector funds for the development of Nigeria.

Vinambres said “Impact investment was created to attract funds from the private sector to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs. We want to validate the framework to seek and attract private funds for development in Nigeria. Hence the need for stakeholders to decide what extra needs to be down to ensure the goal is achieved.

On the part of the Federal Government, the Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Prince Clem Agba restated the government’s commitment to the full implementation of the SDGs.

“This workshop will facilitate the sharing of good practices, success stories and common challenges and draw the attention of critical stakeholders to resources that can be used to address those challenges.

“This government is going to ensure the full implementation of the SDGs goals of vision 2030 agenda of sustainable development and agenda 2063”, Agba said.

The Minister also solicited the collaboration of the private sector and other stakeholders with the Government in it’s desire to realise sustainable development.

Agba said, “I therefore enjoin you the critical stakeholders and the private sector to continue to work closely with government to deliver on the sustainable development.

“Nigerian has great investment potentials with a large market size base on it population and the willingness of the government to create an enabling environment for both local and foreign investment.
I am hopeful that the participants in this workshop will help to facilitate the much needed foreign direct investment in Nigeria” Agba stated.

Earlier, the Inaugural Chairperson of the Nigerian National Advisory Board for Impact Investing (NABII),
Mrs. Ibukun Awosika, emphasized the need to think differently and approach things differently too.

“This validation workshop is for all of us to bare our minds together to learn from other platforms and other countries so that at the end of the day, we will derive the desired result”, Awosika said.
I hope that at the end of the day, we will get a clear roadmap to take us to the destination that we seek.

The Impact Investment Wholesale Fund in Nigeria is established by the National Board of Impact Investing in Nigeria, the Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Sustainable Development Goals, the Office if the Special Adviser to the President on Social Investments and Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning with support from Nigeria Competitive Project, NICOP, the Impact Investors’ Foundation in conjunction with the Ford Foundation and other stakeholders.

NICOP is dedicated to supporting the key value chains of tomato, ginger, chilli and leather and garment production in Abia, kaduna, Lagos, ogun, Oyo and Plateau States, to promote structural transformation, deliver co-ordinated growth and address linkage failures to improve access to regional and international markets.

It is also supporting micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) to take benefits from opportunities to add value and migrate to new and higher lever tasks along selected value chains.