The North Central Development Commission (NCDC) has unveiled plans to collaborate with the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) to drive entrepreneurship and industrial growth across the North Central region.
This was disclosed in a statement issued by Mr. James Uloko, Executive Director of Corporate Services at the Commission, and made available to newsmen on Wednesday in Lafia.
According to the statement, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of NCDC, Dr. Cyril Tsenyil, revealed the partnership plan during a courtesy visit to SMEDAN’s headquarters in Abuja.
Dr. Tsenyil, who led the NCDC management team on the visit, explained that the engagement sought to identify areas of collaboration where the newly established Commission could leverage SMEDAN’s experience and institutional capacity to unlock the region’s abundant human and material resources.
He noted that the partnership would help address key socio-economic challenges such as unemployment, poverty, and youth restiveness in the North Central zone.
The NCDC boss also highlighted major constraints facing entrepreneurs in the region, including inadequate power supply, limited access to finance, weak organisational structures, and low human capital development. He assured that the Commission would work closely with SMEDAN to design sustainable solutions to these issues.
In his response, SMEDAN’s Director-General, Mr. Charles Odii, reaffirmed the agency’s readiness to partner with NCDC through existing and new initiatives.
Odii outlined several SMEDAN programmes that could serve as platforms for collaboration, including cluster entrepreneurship projects, industrial development centres, enterprise talent hunts, and specialised skills acquisition schemes. Others include agribusiness extension services, opportunity fairs, and apprenticeship development programmes.
He further pledged that SMEDAN would assign dedicated officers to work with the Commission in strengthening the partnership for the overall benefit of the North Central region and the country at large.
The visit concluded with a guided tour of some cluster development facilities located within SMEDAN’s premises.