In line with its drive to create greater awareness of the MANSA Digital platform and promote its adoption, the MANSA Digital Initiative team recently participated in a stakeholder engagement forum to discuss access to finance and cheaper funding for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Nigeria.
Co-organised by the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, the forum attracted more than 300 participants, including representatives of the Bank of Industry, the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), the Nigerian Association of Small and Medium Enterprises, government institutions, commercial banks, parastatals, and private sector institutions.
Addressing participants, Ms. Maureen Mba, Head of the MANSA Digital Initiative, announced that Afreximbank had launched the Africa Trade Gateway (ATG), with MANSA as a key player, as a marketplace that provides access to the Bank’s digital businesses designed to promote and increase intra African trade.
She reaffirmed MANSA’s catalytic role in supporting trade in Africa, pointing out that an improved regulatory compliance system for the African continent, through the implementation of enhanced KYC-CDD & AML practices, would have a positive impact on trade growth and would complement the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA).
African countries and organisations, therefore, needed to embrace MANSA as the panacea to mitigate the challenges of non-conformity to due diligence practices and as a catalyst to reduce information asymmetry, she added.
Innovation and technology play a significant role in global transformation especially at a time when African countries feel the acute need to explore alternative ways and means to develop trade among themselves in an effort to achieve accelerated growth and development to structurally transform their economies.
A key highlight of the event was the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the MANSA Digital Initiative and SMEDAN to jointly promote, mobilize and onboard entities on the MANSA repository platform. The MOU, signed on the sidelines of the forum, recognised the collaboration between MANSA and SMEDAN.
