Monitoring and progress evaluation module team enhances MSMEs growth

Each year, June 27 is celebrated as Micro-Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs) Day. It is a day designated by the United Nations with the purpose of promoting awareness about the major contributions of MSMEs to the sustainability of the global economy.

The theme for this year’s MSMEs Day has been declared as “Leveraging Power and Resilience of Micro-, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises to Accelerate Sustainable Development and Eradicate Poverty in Times of Multiple Crises”

According to the United Nations Trade and Development (UNCTAD), “the 2024 MSME Day offers an opportunity to discuss and exchange ideas on how key stakeholders, including policy makers, large companies, financial institutions, and the international community can support micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises to advance and contribute to achieving sustainable development, including poverty eradication and decent work for all”.

Celebrating the 2024 MSMEs Day, our correspondent reviews the roles of a team of Nigerian professionals on the growth of SMEs, particularly with the application of digital information technology in the advancement of SMEs in Nigeria and beyond.

The team derives its name from its major contribution to SMEs in Nigeria, the Monitoring and Progress Evaluation Module Team, composed of four professionals: Mrs Abidemi Omolayo Olukole, Mr Akeem Akintoye Amusa, Mrs Cynthia Onyenze and Mr Michael Okpotu Onoja.

Abidemi Olukole is an Economist and chartered Accountant, with intercontinental experience in the financial industry (United Kingdom and Nigeria) and with vast expertise in the application of digital information technology to SMEs operations. She is currently the Chief Financial Officer at Adioo Nigeria Limited, an IT consulting services provider based in Abuja, Nigeria.

Akeem Amusa is a Chartered Economist and Marketer, Financial Project Manager with a background in Agricultural Economics. He is currently the Regional Control Manager, Heritage Bank Plc and the Supervisor of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Anchor Borrowers’ Programme.

Abidemi Olukole and Akeem Amusa are co-authors of the textbook ‘Economic Principles and Growth of SMEs in Developing Economies: Empirical Experiences’. The book has continued to gain widespread application in the teaching of economics at tertiary education beyond Nigeria, in addition to its application in the financial and business sectors.

Cynthia Onyenze is a Solution Architect and IT Support Lead with expertise in designing, implementing, and maintaining enterprise technology solutions. She specialises in systems architecture, IT infrastructure, and digital transformation support, ensuring secure and scalable operations across projects. Cynthia excels at bridging business needs with technical solutions, driving process efficiency, and leading teams to deliver reliable IT services that power technology-driven growth.

Michael Okpotu Onoja is a Full Stack Engineer & DevOps Expert with extensive experience in building and deploying scalable applications.

Onoja is skilled in React, Vue, and Angular for frontend development and proficient in Azure, GitHub Actions, and CI/CD pipelines. He bridges product development with modern cloud deployment strategies. Onoja is reputed for the provision of technical mentorship, driving agile practices and digital transformation, and has contributed significantly to the growth of product-led ventures and enterprise technology solutions.

The group’s contributions of major significance have been in the advancement of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP). The team developed and donated a software, Monitoring and Progress Evaluation Module to the ABP and provided free technical assistance in its implementation.

The CBN established the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme with the aim of facilitating a demand-driven ecosystem that creates economic linkages for all nodes of the commodity value chain, from input supply, through production, to processing, and finally, to the market.

As of June 2022, a media report quoted Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari: “The Anchor Borrowers Programme has so far supported over 4.8 million smallholder farmers across Nigeria for the production of 23 agricultural commodities, including maize, rice, oil palm, cocoa, cotton, cassava, tomato, and livestock. Today, rice production in Nigeria has increased to over 7.5 million metric tonnes annually.”

The Nigerian media also reported challenges of a poor loan recovery rate in relation to the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme.

Identifying that the problem of poor loan repayment rate from farmers mainly arose from either poor harvest or poor demand for farm produce in addition to the roles of middlemen who fed fat on the returns of farmers, the team developed the Monitoring and Progress Evaluation Module. Application of the software to the operations of the Anchor Borrowers Programme enhanced the monitoring of the yield of farm produce, created direct linkages between farmers and agro-allied industries, resulting in an unprecedented increase in loan recovery from 50 to 90%, both in the Northern and Southwestern parts of Nigeria.

Farmers’ cooperatives and other representatives of institutions in the financial and agricultural sectors testified to the tremendous impact of the invention and interventions of the team on the success of the Anchor Borrowers Programme. No doubts, the impact of the team keeps growing and shows how the application of digital information technology can help in solving problems, especially when professional competence, team spirit and patriotism are deployed.

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