Odu’a Investment Company Limited (OICL) and the Nigerian Office for Philanthropy and Impact Investing have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) towards the provision of grants for MSMEs in the Southwest states.
Officials of both organisations at the Job creation and MSME Secretariat, BOI Building, CBD, Abuja signed the MoU yesterday.
The MoU is geared towards providing funding for startups in order to develop and grow businesses in critical sectors, including Agriculture, renewable energy, fashion and furniture manufacturing.
Chairperson of the Nigeria Office for Philanthropy and Impact Investing, Mrs Thelma Ekiyor-Solanke, said the MoU was part of roadmap towards ensuring the office fulfill 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.
Group Managing Director/CEO, 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 states. “We see economic development as an essential combination between meeting statistics and also achieving social goals, so this partnership is supposed to give us an opportunity 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.
“You will recall that Odu’a Investment is owned by the six South West states, and first thing we are going to do is to create a platform whereby we will be able to engage all the economic agents within the South West.
“This will enable us to participate in activities that will not only grow the economy, but will also create jobs for our people,” he said.
Speaking, 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.
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