[Nigeria Business Week] Collaborations birth opportunities

The forming and maintaining of strategic, mutually beneficial partnerships is pertinent to the development of any economy, especially a growing one like Nigeria. It says something of the country’s economic promise a corporation like Microsoft is collaborating with one of the oldest Nigerian banks, First Bank, to further Small and Medium sized Enterprises.

Digital money transfer company, WorldRemit, also formed a partnership with First Bank to effect instant money transfers to all of its bank accounts in the country.

The middle belt State of Plateau also took a step forward in the Energy sector, with the recent completion and activation of two solar grid plants, a project backed by local and foreign collaboration.

On the Southwest side, Bayelsa State has, according to oil company Shell, received a total of N21billion on community development in the past 10 years.

While the ICT sector makes headlines on a regular basis, the past week has seen the country pay attention to other less popular but equally important sectors, such as insurance and healthcare – a new basic healthcare package was launched and a prominent insurance company received an ISO certification.

Job creation continues to be a priority and Mastercard and partner, Act4 announced an initiative to address this concern.

What has seen unprecedented growth is the Telecom sector. The Nigerian Communications Commission revealed, amongst other findings, that 11.2 million lines were activated in just the month of April. The report expressed concerns however that a growth spurt of this nature, without a corresponding upgrade on networks’ operations may not bode well in the long run.