GEEP, NIMC, SMEDAN Seek Partnership to Strengthen SMEs and Farmers

• To Strengthen Beneficiary Identification, Capacity Building and Digital Support

 

The National Programme Manager of the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP), Mr. Hamza Baba, has initiated a series of strategic engagements aimed at strengthening collaboration and improving beneficiary identification across Nigeria.

During a recent courtesy visit to the Director-General of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), Engineer Abisoye Coker, at the Commission’s headquarters in Abuja, Mr. Baba discussed ways to enhance the accuracy and efficiency of GEEP’s beneficiary registration and verification processes.

The discussions centered on integrating NIMC’s robust identity infrastructure with GEEP’s target outreach to market women, traders, artisans, and smallholder farmers, ensuring that empowerment interventions reach the intended recipients with transparency and accountability. Mr. Baba outlined GEEP’s plan to register beneficiaries by occupation and to develop a data-sharing and verification framework between both agencies for seamless identification and monitoring.

Engineer Coker reaffirmed NIMC’s commitment to a structured partnership that leverages the Commission’s nationwide platform and field operatives to support GEEP enumerators and desk officers (GEEPDECO). Both parties stressed the importance of ensuring that all GEEP beneficiaries possess a valid National Identification Number (NIN) and Bank Verification Number (BVN) to eliminate duplication, improve transparency, and ensure that only verified individuals benefit from the programme.

In a related engagement, Mr. Baba also met with the Director-General of the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), Dr. Charles Odii, to explore opportunities for formal partnership. The collaboration aims to strengthen enterprise development support and improve access to financial empowerment for micro and small business owners nationwide.

During the courtesy call with SMEDAN, Mr. Baba and Dr. Odii identified complementary areas for collaboration, including:

• Capacity building and financial literacy training for micro and small businesses to support the objectives of GEEP 3.0.
• Digital transformation support, including extending SMEDAN’s partnerships with digital platforms to GEEP beneficiaries to improve record‑keeping, expense tracking and payroll management.
• Joint programme development targeting underserved groups — women, youth and artisans — and co‑hosting stakeholder engagements to promote investment opportunities and refine SME financing policies.
• Strengthening linkages between SMEDAN’s Agric Business Development and Empowerment Programme and GEEP’s FarmerMoni initiative to combine technical support, market access and financial empowerment for smallholder farmers.

Both agencies agreed that combining SMEDAN’s technical expertise and market networks with GEEP’s financial empowerment instruments would amplify impact, support rural economic development and contribute to the Federal Government’s broader economic objectives.

Representatives from the three agencies will develop a framework for collaboration and a roadmap for implementation, beginning with beneficiary registration and verification processes and rolling out coordinated training and digital support initiatives for GEEP 3.0 beneficiaries.