The International Small Business Congress (ISBC) will, in partnership with the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), host the first ISBC conference in Abuja, Nigeria next week. Itia Otabor, director of ISBC, who spoke with AMAKA ANAGOR-EWUZIE on the upcoming event, explains how the gathering hopes to address issues of mentorship and training limiting the growth of small businesses.
Tell us what ISBC is about?
ISBC is the gathering of entrepreneurs, small business developers, associated professionals who come together to deliberate on issues that concern small business development across the world.
This conference started in 1974 as Pan-Pacific Small Business Conference that was held in Honolulu City of Hawaii with over 125 represented from 126 countries.
At 10th conference held in Singapore in 1983, the name was changed to the International Small Business Congress, and over the last 44 years, it has been held 28 times across 25 countries. The first time Africa hosted it was in 2012 in Johannesburg, South Africa. So, this is the second time it is coming to Africa, and first time in Nigeria.
It will hold in the Nigerian Airforce Conference Center in Abuja from 9th-12th of September, 2019. We are hoping to get the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo to declare the conference open. Arrays of speakers from Nigeria and outside Nigeria are billed to speak including the President of African Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (AASME).The 3-day conference comes with exhibitions.
At the end of the conference, what do you hope to achieve?
Primarily, the conference hopes to draw attention to issues of small business development, including how Nigeria can accelerate small business development and improve every area of small business development.
Specifically, for this conference, one of the key takeaways we are hoping to get is that Nigeria will officially become part of the ISBC African region and we are hoping to start an Institute of Small Business Development that will focus on training professionals on the issues that have to do with small business development.
As an expert, what are the challenges in the industry?
One of the major challenges that we have come to see when it comes to small business development is lack of preparedness on the part of people that venture into small business. They lack some basic techniques required to run small business.
There is a session at the conference titled, ‘Building Your Business from Scratch to Sustainable Success, Contemporary Wisdom’, and we have about four speakers in that session. The speakers will use their success stories to encourage delegates and participants that they can start from small.
The second major issue is mentorship. We discovered that if small business owners are connected to mentors, it will help them grow their business. We are hoping that this conference will go a long way to building capacity of entrepreneurs in these areas. So, these are the major issues we are hoping that this year’s conference will be able to deliver.
What will you be expecting from the government?
The conference is being held in partnership with SMEDAN, the umbrella body that warehouses all issues entrepreneurs and small businesses face in Nigeria. They are going to be there to listen to the ideas and contemporary wisdom that are driving small business growth globally. We are hoping that some of the issues that are within their means should immediately be implemented.
For instance, the general issues around infrastructure, ease of doing business in Nigeria are not within one agency’s control. The truth be told, the government has to really put a lot of things in place to drive entrepreneurship. Infrastructure will be a key thing.
How can SMEs leverage the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA)?
Well, the full ramification of that agreement is still unfolding. One of the main things the agreement promises would be access to market. But the truth is that if you have access to market, it also means that other people have access to your own market. What this creates for us in Nigeria is that we have to be able to be competitive and for that to happen, it boils down to infrastructure, access to power and so on.
We know that AfCFTA will bring millions of business into the market space. Therefore, for Nigeria to maximise that opportunity, the country has to be competitive and nobody is going to wait for you or defend your right in the market space. Countries like Rwanda, Kenya, and Ghana do not have issues with electricity supply. Most of the countries in Africa have conquered that major issue of electricity supply but Nigeria has not.
