The Small Medium Enterprises (SME) and Micro Finance Agency in Niger has trained 100 youths on entrepreneurship skills development, an official disclosed to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
Mr Bako Bawa, SME Director General, told NAN on Wednesday in Minna that the programme was in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
He said that the youths were trained in six different areas of skills development programmes, including Information Communication Technology (ICT), pure water making, bakery, tailoring and modern agricultural production.
“The youths trained comprised of males and females and the different skills they acquired had given them different business ideas to set up their own business.
“As entrepreneurs, they would also train other apprentices to become self-reliant,” he said.
Bawa said that the SME has 33 micro finance banks in the state, which give loans to 10 trained people as seed money to set up a business.
“We have what is called direct empowerment, where those with business ideas are given loans directly from micro finance banks.
“We don’t give loans on collateral but on trust, guarantee; it must be a group of people that want to form a cooperative society.
“The only thing you need is to have what is called equity contribution with the banks. You must have an account with the bank with some certain per cent of money in it.
“Micro finance banks give loans to cooperative societies, using cross guarantee methodology.
“The minimum loan we give to an average individual varies from N5, 000 to N20, 000, while the maximum we give to a group of people is N200, 000 upward.
“This N200, 000 will be shared to individuals in the group, so that if one person fails to pay the bank, others in the group will assist him or her,” he said.
NAN
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