Research
SME CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT
International opinion on poverty eradication was shifted to a functional approach which centres on household income and consumption expansion driven by increased employment generation rather than on welfare transfer. The emphasis is on the efficient development and utilization of productive capabilities in such a way that the working age population becomes more and more fully and productively employed. The UN MGDs stated that “achieving the income poverty goals depend more on trade and development”. However, since in developing countries, there is, due to the pervasive poverty, a lack of effective demand, trade and development is greatly constrained reinforcing the vicious cycle of poverty.
It is in this regard that export promotion becomes crucial for any serious developing country poverty reduction strategy.
PROGRAM
Identifying winning products and growth markets - Projects are selected on the basis of the growth potential of the product in question, and the existence of a stable demand for the product. An attempt is made to identify products that can mobilize dormant or underutilized production capacities by adapting them to the specifications of a clearly identified product-market demand.
2. Product development, product adaptation, standards and quality - The products to be exported must be competitive in international markets and meet international product requirements. AZPA is to co-operation with organizations like ITC, NEPC to provide technical assistance for this purpose, i.e. assistance in this stage could involve aiding producers in seeking ISO Certification, technological support in production and adaptation of the product to the market, or assistance in quality control and packaging. Other examples of assistance are aiding producers with trial orders before a large scale export order is made to identify and correct any potential problems.
3. Selecting and organizing poor producers - AZPA is to ensure entrepreneurs are organized in some form of co-operative to achieve sufficient scale to produce, market and distribute their products. We are to facilitate their training in marketing, producing and entrepreneurship.
4. Selecting the right product markets for the producer organization – A key aspect is the ability of the productive organization (producers) to sustain production under competitive condition, as well as its ability to meet changing competitive demands. Attention is paid to the strength of the export in international markets.
5. Linking producers to buyers - Another crucial element of the EPEP is the linking of Nigerian producers to international buyers. AZPA is to work to match-make Nigerian producers with international buyers.
6. Finance and Credit - AZPA works in ensuring self-sufficient credit services for EPEP projects.
7. Managerial Training - The development of appropriate managerial skills with a view to making poor producers self-sufficient in the long-run is a key issue addressed via training. AZPA would make arrangement for this.
8. Support Services - AZPA does a needs’ assessment at the onset of the project and carries it throughout the project to ensure every support needed is provided to ensure success. This includes export documentation and procedures.
9. Gender - We encourage women participation.
10. Environment - We also encourage the production of
What has been done:
1. We identified a winning product and growth market: The leather and Garment cluster at Aba (the largest in sub-saharan Africa). It is a low technology industry with forward and backward linkages with the agricultural petrochemical sectors of the economy. It is labour intensive, has high employment generation capabilities and is less capital intensive.Nigeria has a comparative advantage in this sector and can exploit the huge demand for these products in the global market to create employment.
2. We organized SMEs within the industry: This industry is a spontaneous and unorganized agglomeration of individual entrepreneurs and cottage industries completely shut-out from the formal sector of the economy. 99% of industries here do not have any form of registration or access to finance or formal business skills. Greatly constrained by size they cannot absorb transaction costs of local or expect marketing or technical upgrading. We moved into it in June 2008 when we invited entrepreneurs attend the NEPC organized export skills acquisition program in November 2008. Only 11 attended. So we invited them to present their certificate of attendance of the seminar as the requirement for admission into a cooperative society that was to be formed. When we had 10 members we registered the cooperative with the Abia State government with the name: AZPA exporter’s multipurpose cooperative society Ltd. Registration Number: AB 9049. Since then the cooperative have come together to make quality products for export.
3. Selecting the right product market for the cooperatives product: we chose to take advantage of the duty-free export opportunity to theUS market presented by the Africa Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA).
4. Marketing and managerial training: to improve their competitiveness. We train them on export and local marketing and management skills. We sponsored their attendance of NEPCs export skill acquisition programs. We have had five training lesions since on leather manufacturing skills, book keeping skills and cooperative principle as well as export marketing skills
5. Product development, product adaptation, standards and quality: Product manufactured by the members of this cooperative was already so notorious for poor quality and standards, they were scorned even within the country. To prepare them for export the NGO made technical assistance and product assurance arrangement to upgrade their product to international standards. We secured the cooperative a space to carry out its export manufacturing at the UNIDO – built leather and garment common facility center (CFC) Aba Abia state – this factory is the leather and garment center of excellence in sub-SaharanAfrica. Wares made there carry standard organization of Nigeria (SON) quality certification and by extension ISO 900 certification. The coop have exported thousands of products it made in the center
6 Match-making the beneficiaries with buyers: Africa zero- poverty Association ( AZPA) made several efforts including online searches for costumers on the interment to find buyers for the cooperative’s products. Registering the cooperative with business – to-business networking site (alibaba, go4world business, etc) when this yield little fruit, we adopted to sponsoring it to attend trade fairs.
The NGO obtained forms for the cooperative for selection to accompany the NEPC sponsored Nigerian contingent to the Bamako international trade fair in Mali and Monrovia international trade fair Liberia, When the comparative were selected to attend, the NGO undertook the full expenses for the travelling and accommodation expense of the person who represented the NGO. We paid part of monies for production of exhibit taken to the fair. The attendance of this fair evidenced in attendance certificates given to the representative yield production contract and export toMaliandBeninRepublic.
7 Helping the cooperative with support services like export logistic and documentation: to enable beneficiaries attain the goal of export the NGO further supports them through putting in place logistic arrangement and carrying out necessary documentation to process export. To this extent we registered them with the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) – a registration necessary to export . Export No:_____. We still execute all necessary export documentation like filling form NXP, paying NESS, and obtaining a complete certificate of expectation (CCI).
We apply for trade fair participation selection for the cooperative and support them to prepared for and attend screening excises until they are picked.
8 Finance and credit: the biggest obstacle to export inNigeria is lack of finance. We help our beneficiaries overcome this obstacle through making credit arrangement for them. So far, the NGO has donated over N2, 000,000 credit to the cooperative to process their export
9 – we ensure Wemen participation in our programs. We reserve 20% of benefiting slots for women
10 – Environment: We ensure environment friendly manufacturing.
ANTI-CORRUPTION ADVOCACY PROGRAM to get the Nigerian National Assembly pass the FOI bill to law Africa Zero Poverty Association (AZPA) was incorporated in November, 2008. On receiving its registration certificate it embarked on an advocacy program – the first of its kind in the country. The “letter writing” campaign targeted the use of pressure to get the national assembly to embark on Two (2) reforms we believed would reduce corruption in government. We got Nigerians to write letters to their representatives at the National Assembly and urge them to support the passage of the freedom of information bill and the removal of the immunity clause from Nigeria’s constitution. When hundreds of letters were sent we further organized a March on the national assembly to drum up support for this cause. The march took place on march 27, 2009 and received wide press coverage: (picture of me with placard) Hot Fm Abuja reported it in its News on 3rd April 2009; the Leadership newspapers carried pictures of it on April 4 2009 and AIT hosted the Executive Director Mr. Ikechukwu Ude on its morning show kakaaki on April 5 2009 in relation to the program. This and the efforts of other members of the FOI coalition was responsible for the passage of the Freedom of information (FOI) bill into law.
On accomplishing this, the NGO was automatically admitted into membership of the freedom of information coalition – a coalition of NGOs fighting for the passage of the FOI bill. We made tangible contribution to the passage of the bill as it is today into law.
- public awareness campaign to mobilize support for the war on corruption
