The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) on Monday, began a six days intensive training, certification and accreditation of Business Development Service Providers (BDSP) in Kaduna Business School.
The DG of SMEDAN, Dr Dikko Radda, said the training which was in partnership with the Kaduna Business School was keyed toward implementing the National BDSPs certification and accreditation framework.
According to him, the aim of the frame work is to set the standards for business development service interventions by providing the mark of quality for the delivery of business development services to Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in Nigeria.
“What we are trying to achieve as a government is to regulate activities of the BDSP in the country, one of the major challenges faced by MSMEs is inadequate capacity to develop their businesses,” he said.
He noted that most of the people providing the services to the MSMEs were not qualified.
“SMEDAN being an apex organisation in charge of MSMES, feels the need to regulate the activities of the BDSBs to make sure they are fully accredited and certified to meet the demands of the MSME sector of the economy,” he said.
He added the SMEDAN had entered a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Kaduna Business School and Pan Atlantic University in Lagos which could provide certification and accreditation for the BDSBs.
“As the time goes on, we will expand and have centres in each of the states of the federation that can be able to train BDSBs and for them to be able to provide what is needed of them for the development of MSMEs in the country,” he further said.
Radda also noted that skills in demonstration of technical knowledge, relevant to effective delivery of the business development service provision to MSMEs at the end of the certification programme would be acquired.
“They BDSPs will also be able to demonstrate thorough understanding of the MSMEs sub-sector challenge and use effective facilitation skills to support MSMEs in overcoming the challenges.
“Participants will also be able to apply relevant diagnostic tools in assessing the MSMEs business and provide necessary support based on information derived.
“This will positively affect the economy of the country because the challenge of MSMEs is not only finance but lack of capacity, once their capacity is developed, we will see wonders in the subsector of the economy,” Radda said.
In his remarks, the Director of Kaduna Business School, Dr. Dahiru Sani, said the institution was drilled for about three years by international agencies based in the United Kingdom through DFID on how to go about the training of MSMEs.
“This six days intensive training is a maiden edition and it is covering seven states from the north, we have about 40 participants and the program will be run every month until we build enough capacity to support MSMEs in Nigeria,” Sani said.
SA/CHOM/
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Edited by Chioma Ugboma
1 comment:
Well done SMEDAN 💪🏻
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