Akindolie-Igwe said the FATE Institute\u2019s annual State of Entrepreneurship Report has for five years identified the key blockers to growth.<\/p>\n
Access to finance has remained priority number one. This year, access to energy rose to number two, up from around position five in previous years.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cHow many of us have light at home today?\u201d Akindolie-Igwe said.\n<\/p>\n
She said talent remains a third major constraint. Productivity is driven by the people who work in organisations, she said, and many businesses struggle to find and retain staff with the right skills.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThe purpose of this year\u2019s Policy Dialogue Series is how can we empower MSME productivity by unlocking access to finance, energy and talent,\u201d Akindolie-Igwe said.\n<\/p>\n
She said the goal is not a talk shop. The dialogue, coupled with the State of Entrepreneurship Report and a supplementary report on energy, will produce recommendations for what the private sector, and civil society can do to improve conditions for entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n
Oluwatimilehin Deinde-Adedeji, head, policy and stakeholder mobilisation, The FATE Institute, said the Policy Dialogue Series has evolved over more than a decade into a national convening of critical stakeholders for conversations around entrepreneurship in Nigeria. This is the 12th year of the series.\n<\/p>\n
Deinde-Adedeji said the Institute is the research, policy and advocacy arm of the FATE Foundation. It conducts research annually and now has 39 research documents published, with more than 93,000 downloads tracked as of last month.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThe essence of the research is to have business that informs policy,\u201d Deinde-Adedeji said. \u201cWe do that to ensure that the policy engagement we have with government and critical stakeholders for the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Nigeria is really grounded and ensures that it is data-driven.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Read also:https:\/\/businessday.ng\/news\/article\/young-entrepreneurs-urged-to-prioritise-problem-solving-over-ideas-at-get-started-summit\/?amp<\/a><\/strong>\n<\/p>\n He said the focus this year has been flashing for about five years in the State of Entrepreneurship Report: the energy factor and the cost of running a business. Talent is also coming up strongly, and finance has remained at the core of conversations.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s important to know that the problem is no longer establishing businesses in Nigeria, but how these businesses thrive,\u201d Deinde-Adedeji said. \u201cAnd energy is at the core of that conversation.\u201d\n<\/p>\n He said the Institute will launch this year\u2019s State of Entrepreneurship Report on November 19, the same day as the dialogue.\n<\/p>\n Cecilia Akintomide, chairperson, the UN Sanitation and Hygiene Fund and chair of the 2026 PDS technical committee, said behind the statistics are human lives.\n<\/p>\n \u201cIf MSMEs have their productivity restrained in any way or held back, just connect the dots,\u201d Akintomide said. \u201cIt has impact on people\u2019s lives. It has impact on their health. It has impact on their children\u2019s education.\u201d\n<\/p>\n She said it also affects jobs and MSME competitiveness. Nigeria is competing in a world of very open markets, particularly with the African Continental Free Trade Area, she said, and the Nigerian market is not limited to Nigerians.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re competing with folks that don\u2019t have the productivity challenges that we may have,\u201d Akintomide said.\n<\/p>\n She said the dialogue will not be a talk shop because all players will participate \u2014 government, private sector, policymakers and civil society \u2014 sharing progress made by government, areas that still need attention, and solutions developed by the private sector.\n<\/p>\n Akintomide said what stands out about the Policy Dialogue Series is that it is anchored in research, not just people talking. The research reflects engagement with businesses across Nigeria, from the northernmost to the southernmost and east to west, she said.\n<\/p>\n \u201cIt reflects the whole nation,\u201d Akintomide said. \u201cNot what appears to be, but the reality of their experience.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Ifeoma Williams, senior special adviser on strategic communications, Office of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment and a member of the 2026 PDS technical committee, said government should not be in the business of doing business.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat government should do is enable businesses and ensure that the environment is conducive for them to thrive,\u201d Williams said.\n<\/p>\n \u201cWe cannot become a one trillion dollar economy if we don\u2019t begin to consume what we produce,\u201d Williams said.\n<\/p>\n She said Nigeria is not short of policies. The challenge is implementation \u2014 moving from policies to actually implementing them.\n<\/p>\n Williams said the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment has moved from just having policies to implementing them, including through strategic partnerships like the one with FATE Foundation.\n<\/p>\n She cited the Ministerial Roundtable Series, where the private sector, other arms of government and agencies meet for pointed conversations.<\/p>\n She said MSMEs suffer from a lack of patient capital. Capital might be patient but not courageous, she said, and the question is how to provide affordable finance.\n<\/p>\n \u201cGovernment is a very willing partner in this conversation,\u201d Williams said.\n<\/p>\n Femi Egbesola, national president, Association of Small Business Owners of Nigeria and a member of the 2026 PDS technical committee, said the data matches what his members experience daily.\n<\/p>\n Egbesola said his association has more than 70,000 members across the federation. He said 20 percent of MSMEs have gone under, representing about 8 million businesses.\n<\/p>\n He said globally, businesses struggle to survive their first four to five years. In Nigeria, 80 percent of businesses die in the first two years, he said.<\/p>\n Egbesola said the three major pillars are access to finance, talent and energy. For energy, MSMEs spend more than 40 percentbof revenue on power, he said.\n<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you begin to spend that kind of volume on energy, you wonder how you can be competitive and how you can survive,\u201d Egbesola said.\n<\/p>\n He said the financing gap for MSMEs is about N48 trillion, citing Central Bank of Nigeria\u2019s data.\n<\/p>\n Funding is sometimes available, he said, but access remains the problem.\n<\/p>\n On talent, Egbesola said the capacity problem is taking Nigeria\u2019s best workforce away. Even those available are often mismatched to business needs, which reduces productivity, he said.<\/p>\n He said the goal of the dialogue is to go beyond talk to actionable solutions that make finance more accessible, energy cheaper and talent more available.\n<\/p>\n Josephine Okojie-Okeiyi is a journalist with over five years\u2019 reporting experience. She writes on industry, agriculture, commodities, climate change, and environmental issues.
Source: <\/p>\n Nigeria\u2019s push for a $1 trillion economy will become a reality when its small businesses can get access to cheaper finance, reliable energy and skilled workers. Ayomide Akindolie-Igwe, executive director,… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16934,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Related News<\/h4>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Nigerias-1trn-goal-hinges-on-closing-small-business-finance-gaps-Businessday-NG.jpg\")
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\nShe is fellow of Thomson Reuters Foundation and Bloomberg Media Initiative for Africa.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n\t\t![\"Add](\"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Nigerias-1trn-goal-hinges-on-closing-small-business-finance-gaps-Businessday-NG-1.jpg\")
\n\t<\/a>
\n\t
\n\t\t![\"Follow](\"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Nigerias-1trn-goal-hinges-on-closing-small-business-finance-gaps-Businessday-NG-2.jpg\")
\n\t<\/a>\n<\/div>\n