The Bank of Industry (BoI), Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), are collaborating to boost entrepreneurship, deepen financial inclusion and fast-track poverty eradication in the country.
The Executive Director, Micro Enterprises, BoI, Mrs Toyin Adeniji, disclosed this during a visit with the directors of the groups to the Lagos State Plank and Building Materials Market Association. She said the partnership was to support the Federal Government’s social intervention programme, ‘Market Moni, under the Government Enterprises and Empowerment Program (GEEP) initiative.
GEEP is a social intervention programme designed to stimulate bottom of the pyramid with credit. It targets market men and women, traders, artisans, enterprising youths and farmers by providing interest-free loans ranging from N10,000 to N100,000, but with the payment of a one-time administrative fee of 5 percent.
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation works with partner organizations worldwide to tackle critical problems aimed at helping the world’s poorest people lift themselves out of hunger and poverty.
CGAP is a global partnership of more than 30 leading organizations that seeks to advance financial inclusion and develops innovative solutions through practical research and active engagement with financial service providers, policy makers, and funders to scale up approaches.
Adeniji stated: “We are working in partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and CGAP to ensure that we scale up GEEP to the target that the government wants to reach. Our target is to reach over a million beneficiaries, we are in partnership with them to support us so that we can scale up the programme and reach these targets.
