{"id":43183,"date":"2022-01-17T08:15:27","date_gmt":"2022-01-17T08:15:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/?p=43183"},"modified":"2022-01-20T16:05:46","modified_gmt":"2022-01-20T16:05:46","slug":"african-development-bank-board-approves-us170-million-for-investment-in-nigerias-digital-and-creative-start-ups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/2022\/01\/17\/african-development-bank-board-approves-us170-million-for-investment-in-nigerias-digital-and-creative-start-ups\/","title":{"rendered":"African Development Bank Board approves US$170 million for investment in Nigeria\u2019s digital and creative start-ups"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong><em>The investment in Digital and Creative Enterprises Program (i-DICE) is a Federal Government of Nigeria initiative promoting investment in digital and creative industries.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank (ADB) has approved a loan of US$170 million to finance a digital and creative enterprises programme in Nigeria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The investment in Digital and Creative Enterprises Programme (i-DICE) is a Federal Government of Nigeria initiative promoting investment in digital and creative industries. It is part of Nigeria\u2019s efforts to build back better, greener, and more inclusively, to create more sustainable jobs for the teeming youthful population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The programme targets more than 68 million Nigerians aged 15 to 35 years who are recognised as leaders of innovative, early-stage, technology-enabled start-ups or as leaders of creative sector micro, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). The scheme is co-financed by the Agence Fran\u00e7aise de D\u00e9veloppement (AFD) and the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cGovernments have a much greater role than just policy making. They need to be innovative and create an enabling environment that includes infrastructure and de-risking to harness private sector investments in key growth sectors,\u201d said Akinwumi A. Adesina, President, African Development Bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The investment in Digital and Creative Enterprises Programme will also support the leaders through enterprise support organisations \u2013 groups that support, train, and sometimes fund entrepreneurs \u2013 including innovation hubs, accelerators, venture capital and private equity firms. Bank financing of i-DICE will help the government initiative further consolidate Nigeria\u2019s position as Africa\u2019s leading start-up investment destination and as a youth entrepreneurship hub.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis programme is among the latest series of our operations meant to bolster the implementation of the Bank\u2019s Jobs for Youth in Africa Strategy. Given that tech-enabled enterprises cut across all the economic growth sectors, the program\u2019s focus on the digital sector will deepen Nigeria\u2019s job creation efforts,\u201d said Beth Dunford, Vice President, Agriculture, Human and Social Development, African Development Bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The initiative will stimulate investments in 226 technology and creative start-ups and provide non-financial services to 451 digital technology and small and medium enterprises. In addition, the scheme is expected to create 6.1 million direct and indirect jobs, of which the ADB\u2019s financing will support the creation of about 850,000 jobs. The value added to the Nigerian economy connected to the programme is estimated at US$6.4 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to ADB, the programme will boost Nigeria\u2019s venture capital market through independently managed funds focusing on digital and creative enterprise. These funds aim to attract an initial capitalisation of US$433 million in private and public sector financing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis programme will generate significant economic benefits to Nigeria,\u201d said Lamin Barrow, Director General, ADB\u2019s Nigeria Country Department. \u201cThe programme interventions will help respond to the challenges of youth employment in Nigeria, which could intensify without scalable interventions. I want to recognise the strong country ownership, under the leadership of Vice President Osinbajo,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The African Development Bank\u2019s active portfolio in Nigeria comprises 57 operations across 30 public and 27 private sector operations, valued at about US$4.61 billion. The i-DICE Programme aligns well with the bank\u2019s strategic priority areas, better known as the High Fives \u2013 specifically, \u201cIndustrialise Africa, Improve the quality of life for the people of Africa and Feed Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The investment in Digital and Creative Enterprises Program (i-DICE) is a Federal Government of Nigeria initiative promoting investment in digital and creative industries. The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank (ADB) has approved a loan of US$170 million to finance a digital and creative enterprises programme in Nigeria. The investment in Digital and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":43184,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,260,9056,183,262,9060],"tags":[2301,15048,685],"class_list":["post-43183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-intelligent-technology","category-regional-news-newsletter","category-regions","category-software","category-used","category-west-africa","tag-african-development-bank","tag-i-dice","tag-nigeria"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43183"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43251,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43183\/revisions\/43251"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}