NITDA, SMEDAN collaborate on SMEs database

THE National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) are collaborating to create a database of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

Director-General of NITDA, Mr Kashifu Inuwa, said this in a statement issued by Head, Corporate Affairs and External Relations of the agency, Mrs Hadiza Umar, in Abuja.

Umar said the Director-General made this known while receiving the Director-General of SMEDAN, Mr Charles Odii, during a courtesy visit to the agency.

The purpose of the visit was to seek partnership in terms of infrastructural and human capital development for SMEs in Nigeria that would enable decision making procedures.

Inuwa said approximately 40 million small businesses across the country were responsible for 50 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and 70 million jobs.

He said the collaboration would focus on developing infrastructure, digital literacy and many more, to build a database generated from real occurrences so as to channel interventions appropriately.

Inuwa said that there were opportunities for collaboration between NITDA and SMEDAN as contained in the NITDA Strategic Roadmap and Action Plan.

He said the collaboration would facilitate the penetration of digital literacy among SMEs to enhance productivity, while adding that it also aligned with the objective of the National Digital Literacy Framework (NDLF).

“We all know that with digital literacy, a market woman can sell her goods without moving from one place to another, as someone that can use digital platforms to order goods and have them delivered to them.

“The collaboration will strengthen policy implementation and legal frameworks like the Nigerian Start-up Act.

“SMEs make up about 90 percent of the country’s workforce and more than 90 percent of businesses.

“We want to work with you to explore how we can get SMEs to benefit from all the incentives within the Start-up Act and target those who use innovation to promote productivity or innovation-driven enterprises,” Inuwa said.

He added that issues on cybersecurity solutions were being considered for SMEs to promote digital trust by having SMEs that provided affordable and indigenous cybersecurity services.

Odii had earlier said they wanted NITDA to preview their curriculum to ensure it met global standards and the NDLF.

He said, “We understand that NITDA is the secretariat for the Start-up Act and we want to work with you in sensitising SMEs. We want to sensitise especially those of them who are start-ups to take advantage of this and help to add to your database for registration.

“We have a robust SME database that we are building, and we will like to partner with you to make sure that the framework for this database is in line with what you have for data entrepreneurs.”