Odu’a Investment Company Limited and the Nigerian Office for Philanthropy and Impact Investing have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to strengthen funding for MSMEs in the South-West states in critical sectors, including agriculture, renewable energy, fashion, and furniture manufacturing.
The MoU was signed on Monday by officials of both organisations at the Job Creation and MSME Secretariat, BOI Building, CBD, Abuja
The Chairperson of the Nigeria Office for Philanthropy and Impact Investing, Mrs Thelma Ekiyor-Solanke, said the MoU was part of the roadmap towards ensuring the office fulfils its mandate by working with relevant stakeholders.
“We are pleased to work with our first batch of partners, engaging in different areas of interest, so that when each person brings what they are good at we get a whole.
“We hope that through this partnership we will be able to unlock skills and capacity-building advantages.
After this, we hope it will encourage more and more people to partner with the government in this area because the high rate of unemployment has caused social problems and insecurity,” she said.
The Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Odu’a Investment Company Limited, Mr Abdulrahman Yinusa, who signed on behalf of the group, said the execution of the MOU was very important to achieve “impact investing” in the South-West region.
“We see economic development as an essential combination between meeting statistics and also achieving social goals, so this partnership is supposed to allow us to actually have what we call impact investing.
“In impact investing, you want to go beyond the profit and loss and go into how much people are getting employed and how sustainable are the developments. This partnership is supposed to help go beyond making money but to get jobs for our people and also look after the environment,” he said.
In his remarks, the Senior Special Assistant to President Bola Tinubu on Job Creation and MSMEs, Mr Tola Johnson, said the MoU was a milestone towards realising the President’s commitment to job creation.
Odu’a Investment is owned by the six South West states.