Page 26 - ICD AR21 EN

3.1.1 Context
Nigeria’s persistent macroeconomic challenges, coupled with COVID-19 repercussions, have had an adverse impact on the health of the country’s private sector, especially SMEs. The problems faced by SMEs include, among others: poor access to finance, a reduction in sales revenue, loss of staff due to an inability to pay salaries, increasing debt, a disruption in both local and international supply chains and price uncertainty. These problems are particularly acute for women entrepreneurs as they are prone to face additional business constraints due to their informality in addition to prevailing cultural, legal and societal norms. Tackling gender disparities
in economic opportunities is therefore crucial in reinvigorating key sources of potential growth in Nigeria.
As a result, in April 2020, the IsDB Group signed the Framework Agreement with the Federal Republic of Nigeria (represented by Federal Ministry of Finance) outlining its support in the implementation of the BRAVE Women Nigeria Project. The Bank of Industry (BOI) of Nigeria was assigned as the Local Execution Agency (LEA) for the project, which was developed to be implemented in three Nigerian states (Edo, Kano and Gombe). The participating women-owned or led businesses would benefit from two major project interventions: i) specialized business resilience training which will enhance entrepreneurial, financial, and business development skills and ii) grant-matching assistance.
3.1.2 2021 project milestones
In 2021, the BRAVE Women program in Nigeria successfully established a viable Project Management Unit (PMU) within the premises of BOI, supported by a Resident Technical Adviser (RTA) who provided advisory services for the set-up and capacity building of the PMU. In its final phase, the capacity building component involved a knowledge-exchange session between the BRAVE Women's program designated LEAs in Nigeria and Yemen and the Small and Micro Enterprise Promotion Service (SMEPS). As the main facilitator, SMEPS assumed the role as the lead knowledge provider due to its extensive experience in implementing the BRAVE Women program in Yemen.
A BCP training workshop
The key goal of the capacity building exercise was
to have SMEPS impart its lessons learned and best practices as acquired under the current BRAVE
Women and previous BRAVE Yemen projects in the fields of project management, finance, monitoring and evaluation, marketing and communication onto the new PMU in Nigeria. Ultimately, the aim was to enhance the capacity of the new PMU in Nigeria to a level that met all the requirements established by both the donor (We-Fi) and the IsDB in delivering project results to the intended beneficiaries in the most cost-efficient, optimal and impactful manner. ICD is proud to have played a critical role in facilitating this triangular form of 'South-South' technical knowledge-exchange program.
Subsequently, a rapid market assessment was conducted in order to gauge the preliminary degree
of interest among WSMEs to participate in the project, which was followed by an intense marketing and promotion campaign conducted across the project's three targeted states of Kano, Edo and Gombe.
As at the final quarter of 2021, 1,505 firm applications had been received by the project through its web portal, out of which 600 WSMEs met the project's selection criteria and were ultimately retained in addition to 24 lead firms and 14 business associations. The training
of the beneficiaries commenced in the second half of December following an initial 'Training of Trainers' (ToT) activity. The latter is a training organized by BOI with the aid of a consultant to train a selected list of business advisors in the domain of Business Continuity Planning
24 ICD ANNUAL REPORT 2021