The Kogi Enterprise Environment is the deployment of Activ8Change into Kogi State in Nigeria, to support over 3.5 million citizens, by developing enterprise and employment in the areas of Agriculture and Hand-Craft, and potentially in Supply Chain and Community Services – all within a fully supported and globally connected “Enterprise Ecosystem”.
Designed by CIL to be incubated within this unique designed and created Enterprise Environment in Kogi State; which enjoys a range of features and benefits. International crowd-funding has begun to finance beneficiary groups and programmes start-up from January 2015.
The eradication of poverty and the creation of self-sufficiency comes from two key things; People (providing new skills through development and mentoring) and Structure (creation of an environment within which trading creates income and employment).
The creation of an Enterprise Environment creates an ecosystem within which micro-enterprise and Small Medium Enterprise (SME) can generate community based employment and income. Kogi State being an established trading region, with a long-standing agriculture capability, vibrant market culture and available workforce population of over 3.6 million people, has all of the required components in place within its 11.5 thousand square miles. The presence of supply chain infrastructure enables Kogi to connect nationally and internationally, through the Ajaokuta Steel Works’ presidential airport, and the City of Lokoja’s deep river port capability and transport links to Abuja in the North, and Lagos in the South. Market research in Europe and the Middle East during early 2014 established significant commercial investment interest exists in such an Enterprise Environment as a route to Nigeria and alliances in Kogi State.
CIL established very early-on in visits to Kogi State, that political, commercial and community will existed to partner and joint venture with overseas investors to create such an environment, where communities could quickly benefit from being trained and supported into enterprise and employment within an Activ8Change supported Enterprise Environment; where agriculture based co-operatives would trade to generate GDP and per capita income. By creating a commercially safe route for international organisations to come to Nigeria via Activ8Change in Kogi, formal discussions could be facilitated and implemented.
