By AMAKA ABAYOMI

The National Association of Microfinance Banks Lagos State chapter (NAMB-LAG) has concluded plans to partner with strong institutions to improve the quality, scope and depth of its capacity building programme this year.

Such institutions include Institutes of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN), Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN), Centre for Management Development (CMD), Nigeria Institute of Management (NIM), and Industrial Training Fund (ITF).

Olufemi Babajide, chairman, NAMBLAG, noted that there was dearth of manpower in the sub-sector when the association took over leadership, adding that capacity programme commenced fully in 2011, as “we put in place strong committee in charge of capacity building.”

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) stated in the revised policy guidelines for microfinance banks that efforts shall be made to promote capacity building through the apex associations of the microfinance institutions in collaboration with development partners.

In this regard, the CBN has put in place the Microfinance Certification Programme (MCP) to ensure the acquisition of appropriate microfinance operational skills by staff and management of microfinance institutions in general and MfBs in particular.

However, NAMB-LAG had consistently engaged its members in manpower development targeted at covering 50 million market size, representing 65 per cent of the under-banked in the country.

MfBs hope to move to 20 per cent relevance in the Nigerian economy from the present 0.9 per cent, according to Babajide, and had earlier said the capacity programme would encompass the following: proper understanding of microfinancing, operating and regulatory environment, efficient and effective delivery of microfinance services; development of micro-finance products and supervisory, and regulatory guidelines for microfinance banks in Nigeria; credit administration; lending models; risk management processes and procedure; internal audit and control; financial reporting and industry fundamentals; among others.