The FATE Institute, a subsidiary of the FATE Foundation, has stated that the business environment in Nigeria has been declining over the years and called for improvement in this area.
It disclosed this in Lagos during a recent press conference to announce the 10th Policy Dialogue Series on Entrepreneurship.
Speaking during the programme, a Director at FATE Foundation, Amaka Nwaokolo, said this year’s edition is unique because the foundation will launch the Annual State of Entrepreneurship Report Index developed by FATE Institute.
She said the report which started in 2021 shows that an environment that enables businesses to thrive has constantly ranked low.
“Since we started this in 2021, it’s interesting because the enabling business environment has consistently ranked the lowest on that index,” she said.
She said the foundation index measures or assesses entrepreneurial activity using a scale between zero and one.
“We started at 0.69 in 2021. In 2022, we dipped to 0.58. By 2023, we dipped again to 0.52. But this year, I am sure as you can imagine, we have dipped, but we have dipped really more significantly than we had done over the years from 0.52 to 0.46,” she said.
Nwaokolo emphasised that the development buttresses some of the feedback that the foundation hears from entrepreneurs.
“If you look back over the past year, 2023, you know, we had to grapple with a lot of things. Still reeling from the impact of COVID-19, for example, the economy is still trying to recover from that,” she said.
She blamed the drop on the many economic issues in the country including the forex crisis and subsidy removal, among others.
“And then we had the full subsidy removal that happened. If you remember, we also had foreign exchange issues that happened in a way that led to currency depreciation, and rising energy costs. I mean, all of us know the cost of power, even if you’re not running a business, you can attest to this. But you can imagine the impact on small businesses,” she said.
Earlier, the Executive Director of FATE Foundation, Adenike Adeyemi, said the event, with the theme, ‘Nigeria in the next decade, building a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem for the future’, will take place in Lagos.
She said the edition underscores the foundation’s commitment to shaping the future of entrepreneurship in Nigeria and fostering a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem in Nigeria.
“We look forward to convening key stakeholders to explore critical levers for growth, identify innovative solutions, and drive collective action towards a more vibrant entrepreneurship ecosystem,” she said.
The President of the Association of Small Business Owners of Nigeria, Dr Femi Egbesola, said initiatives like the Policy Dialogue Series are crucial in addressing the pressing challenges faced by Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises, “such as access to finance, regulatory hurdles, and infrastructure deficits.”
