As a pioneer staff, it was quite challenging but very rewarding working with a developmental organization that has international support. For me, the experiences are two prone – 1) relating with and meeting the needs of my clients and 2) Advocating for assistance to support the STEP initiative from governmental agencies, private companies, individuals and the other donors. One the side of meeting the needs of our target group, research was carried out at the inception to generate information and ascertain the needs and constraints facing operators in the informal sector. This was then followed by one-on-one field visits where peculiar problems facing each business were tackled. In order to reduce the cost of intervention and be more effective, clients were grouped based on their specific needs and counseled on areas of possible improvement and how they can deal with such challenges.
Offering this kind of support was not without challenges, however with the passion for development displayed by the staff, STEP was able to turn those challenges into opportunities. One of such is the language barrier – since some of the clients on the lower strata are not literate, STEP officers had to learn the skills of delivering business training programs in vernacular in other to ensure better assimilation by the audience. This singular deed made STEP to be the first institution that offers BDS in local dialects in Nigeria. This has endeared STEP to her clients at the grassroots since they are now confident to communicate their business needs, and are rest assured that those needs will be met whether or not they are educated.
Getting support has been a Herculean task, apart from the funds from STEP’s primary donors which is hardly enough considering the large un-served market, it seems a bit difficult to get local sponsors despite the laudable initiatives. STEP has continued to solicit for more support and believe that it will materialize into something worthwhile in the near future.
About STEP
The STEP initiative is a brain-child of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) – the private sector arm of the World Bank Group. The rationale for initiating the program was borne out of the findings from research which revealed that a great number of businesses in Nigeria face a lot of problems and challenges which eventually impede their growth. The study also stated that about 70% of economic activities are not accounted for in the GDP because their operations fall within the informal sector. Since most of these Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) fall within this sector, they are usually not well structured and it becomes very difficult to capture their contributions to the overall GDP in Nigeria.
The problem above was what necessitated the setting up of STEP. STEP’s mandate was to bridge the widening gap between the formal and informal sector of the Nigerian economy through the provision of the Business Development Services (BDS) to MSEs. The pilot project is in Lagos State. The success of the project led to more replications in Eket, Akwa-Ibom State, Niger-Delta region and also Chad and Mali. To achieve the set objectives, twenty-five young graduates were recruited as pioneer staff; they acted in the capacity of field-officers and were trained in business management and advisory skills to deliver tailor-made BDS to MSEs.
In the past four years, apart from successful replications and better outreach to MSEs, STEP has built capacity in over 12,000 businesses through her entrepreneurship development programs. STEP offers customized training programs, seminars, workshops and other technical assistance on different aspects of business in order to strengthen the managerial capacities of these businesses. The specific services offered include business plans, records keeping, recruitment, human resource management, consulting amongst others.
STEP also provides linkage to micro-finance for clients, through strategic collaborations with existing Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs), though this kind of support is somewhat inadequate because of limited funds available to these MFIs.
STEP is on the verge of assisting clients with e-commerce - by providing a forum through which they can showcase their products to international markets.
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