In a determined move to introduce measures aimed at strengthening non-oil revenue resources, stakeholders at the National Stakeholders Validation Workshop on the informal sector contribution – a World Bank Assisted project in four Nigerian states – advocate extension services system to harness more economic opportunities in the formal sector.
The states in focus are Bayelsa, Delta, Edo, and Rivers states, who are currently participating in the World Bank Project of State Employment and the Expenditure for Results (SEEFOR). The SEEFOR Project is a World Bank funded project with an interest free loan of $200 million.
The extension agents model to be adopted, according to the stakeholders, is the model currently used in the agricultural sector where research findings by local and international organisations are disseminated
to the farmers through extension agents.
“We have SMEDAN in the country. If only they could serve as a anchor link between the government and the private sector, it would boost economic value in the informal sector. Dealing with challenges of infrastructure, technology, funding, and linking knowledge based and the financial sector accordingly, the informal sector and the financial sector would go a long way,” Israel Olufemi Taiwo, director- general, Nigeria Institute of Social and Economic Research, and Bassey Akpanyung, secretary, National Planning Commission, said in the workshop.
Meanwhile, the head of the EU delegation, Omotunde Oli, at the workshop urged Nigeria to always take advantage of the opportunities the re-basing of the GDP afforded it in plugging the loopholes the re-basing exercise offered to the economy.
He said that development of the informal sector was a leeway in pulling down poverty, and offered a sectoral planning platform for the government to operate on.
“This is a World Bank Project, and the model is currently a success in the United States of America. The first step is to understudy the basic characteristics of the informal sector in a particular community, and that naturally offers a direction for the government during the course of intervention,” he said.
In the region under concentration, the sector’s contribution to the GDP averaged 34.9 percent. Also, the sector generates 6.5 million jobs in the state under review.
Available information from the various studies conducted globally shows that the informal sector contributes 50-55 percent to GDP in Africa ans Sub-saharan African Countries. Further findings revealed that the sector contributes 50-80 percent to employment creation.
Available data shows further that SEEFOR states have witnessed some improvement with the employment of over 10,000 youths under the small public works of the projects,while over 121,000 people are accessing other growth enhancing services under numerous informal sector initiatives in the targeted communities of the projects.
Harrison Edeh, Abuja
