The Director-General of the Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), Dr Dikko Radda, says the agency will ensure extended monitoring and evaluation of the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) for economic development.
The director-general said this on Wednesday in Abuja at a news conference heralding the 2021 UN World MSMEs Day.
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The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the UN set aside every June 27 for the celebration of resilience and significance of the MSMEs
As part of the celebration, SMEDAN will hold MSMEs awareness campaigns, exhibitions, roadshow and participate in national discourse on MSMEs holding June 24 with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and other top officials participating.
SMEDAN will also participate at the fourth National MSMEs awards holding on June 27 which will be hosted by Vice President.
He, however, said that more monitoring and evaluation could assist in developing MSMEs policies.
The director-general said that the agency was making effort to ensure that the National MSMEs Council extended monitoring and evaluation of MSMEs by a recognised MSMEs body.
“So that we can be able to give report concerning programmes being done by the Federal Government in that regard.
“Part of the reasons why we do not have much monitoring and evaluation aspect of the MSMEs programmes is because of no coordination as those activities in support of MSMEs are done by different government agencies and ministries.
“In SMEDAN all our activities are monitored and evaluated which gives us input as to how we can run the same programme next time,” he said.
Jedda said that SMEDAN being an apex organisation had been in the forefront of MSMEs coordination through the National MSMEs Council.
”Under that circumstances, not much was achieved on the monitoring and evaluation because individual agencies and ministries were equally doing monitoring and evaluation,” he said.
The SMEDAN boss said that all efforts must be geared towards supporting, exposing and proffering solutions to the challenges confronting 41 million MSMEs in Nigeria.
The theme of the 2021 event is “MSMEs: Key to an inclusive and sustainable recovery”.
Jedda said that the theme of this year was appropriate as the whole world is gradually recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic in which MSMEs were worst hit. (NAN)
