 In 2018, while I was visiting the Abu Bakar Gumi Market in Carduna to launch the Trader Money Program, one of our government enterprises programs, I met a gentleman, Jaffa Abu Bakar, who at the time was trading in ginger and garlic, and was one of about 5,000 or so traders who had just received 10,000 naira, micro credit of course, for their business in that market. I'm sure that some of us may remember what Trader Money was, but Trader Money anyways is one of the schemes in our social investment program where we loan small amounts of money to informal traders. But what struck me about what he said, especially about how he got to be selected to benefit, was that he said, I just applied. I didn't know anybody. They came here, they captured my data last week, and I got the alert yesterday. There he was showing me the alert on his phone. Stories like Jaffa's story have come all too familiar over the years. It's a consistent tune that I hear as I engage beneficiaries of our intervention programs. I'm sure many of those who work in the field on these intervention programs experience the same sorts of reactions. This is perhaps for me one of the most satisfying things about the way our social intervention schemes and several of our schemes and interventions on behalf of micro credit of MSMEs work. There is a platform that can process applications from potential beneficiaries, pay out credits or other benefits, maintain auditable records. Simulously, is the people and infrastructure that make this happen, that we're here to celebrate today? And those people and infrastructure you heard a bit about already, and I'm sure that when the report is presented, we'll hear even more. This is a journey, as we've heard also, that began as an idea barely six years ago. An idea that we can actually build systems that will serve everybody fairly unjustly and bring credibility to government programs, especially government programs that involve handing out cash, giving people money in one shape or form or the other. One of the biggest barriers that was identified was the ability to reach people directly, to capture and digitize their information even if they were illiterate, and process a benefit to them that is transparent to all. The vision set out to solve this problem, and I must say that bold vision was expressed in the most ambitious social intervention project in Nigeria's recent history. And as we've heard possibly in Africa, with a series of people-centric programs. For some programs, every day Nigerians were young graduates who would benefit from a direct stipend and employment placement from the government. For others, it will be pupils who, in schools, in public schools, for whom a reliable meal per day would make the difference between staying enrolled in school or skipping school to earn money for that meal. However, a critical sector of the hard work in Nigeria that we tried to impact, or that we were looking to impact, were the micro, small, and medium enterprises. This group had been left far behind historically, and the path to reach them was even less figured out. Most of these businesses, of course, as you know are informal, but they account for close to 50 percent of our GDP and 76 percent of our labor force. So this demography, of course, was far too important to ignore. We had to start solving for them. Today, we witness the successes of a long and ambitious journey, targeting and impacting MSMEs with interventions. The results, in my view, have far exceeded even what was envisioned. The infrastructural processes that have been built to achieve this are nothing short of remarkable. People wonder what was done differently this time. One of the key decisions that was made was to give a free hand that government made, that is, was to make, it was to give a free hand to an institution with a track record, the bank of industry in this case, as well as a team of competent experienced Nigerian professionals, to understand and solve the problem. So the question was, how do you solve this big problem of getting credit and getting services to millions of people in far-flung areas of Nigeria? So with all the best idea would be to give the problem to professionals, to think through and tell us how to deal with it. So BOI was that organization that we give the problem to and a set of very experienced professionals that work there and that are their partners. And today what we have is BOI's group platform, Africa's largest infrastructure for direct interventions to MSMEs. A lot of us would know a lot of us would know of the household name, some of the programs that have become household names and that have targeted enterprises of different scales. The programs range from the government enterprise and empowerment program, GEEP, and it's under that that we have the trader money, farm money, et cetera. The World Bank NG cares program, the MSME survival fund, the Northeast rehabilitation fund, and then several state-based interventions to name a few. What might not be obvious is the extent of the growth platform's operations, the engine and the nationwide field infrastructure that has been responsible for driving these programs credibly and delivering the results in a manner that is direct, that is trackable, and that is transparent. What might not also be obvious is the shared scale of the impact that has been achieved with these programs. Today over 4 million micro, small, and medium enterprises have been direct beneficiaries of over 150 billion now deployed in the past five years. 57 of these MSMEs are owned by Nigerians below the age of 35 years and close to 60 percent of the beneficiaries are women. What is even less glaring is that the team of Nigerian professionals behind this work is largely young with an average age of about 28 years old. I visited the growth platform's command center at the Bank of Industry and what I saw was simply unprecedented. They now have 22,000 agents, as we've heard, living across all local governments in Nigeria and equipped with its proprietary mobile technologies. They receive mandates to capture and digitize businesses eligible for its growing suite of programs. In some cases, these agents or human banks, as we've heard them called, open the first ever bank account or mobile wallet used by the micro enterprises. Every detail of each business is trackable centrally at the Bank of Industry down to bio, data, geo, location, images, facial IDs of every micro, small, and medium entrepreneur were applicable. Now this has been greatly simplified. The profile has greatly simplified the profiling and decision making processes that have allowed for direct outreach and impact on Nigerian MSMEs at tremendous scale. And this has been done directly with entirely homegrown solutions and an ecosystem of institutions, donor partners, service providers and technology companies all here in Nigeria. Of course, like every country in Nigeria faces its own peculiar challenges. These challenges are sometimes, or these challenges sometimes, be clouded the tremendous progress that is being made across a wide range of sectors and the fact that we are fast moving forward in building homegrown solutions that make the government more directly accountable and beneficial and transparent to its people. I'm delighted to be celebrating another such example that commenced with the federal government and has since taken a life of its own. The growth platform, this growth platform that we launching today, serves a broad range of institutions beyond government supporting them to execute huge programs for the benefit of the Nigerian people. Some of these institutions include the World Bank and the African Development Bank. While what we are witnessing today is impressive for sure, it should not be surprising. The growth platform is precisely who we are. This is the story of the Nigerian can-do spirit and the entrepreneurial DNA that we carry. This is a shining case study of what President Mohammed Buhari strongly asserted, that Nigerians will solve Nigeria's problems. And this is an example of what we can achieve when we unleash the best of our people, especially our young people, on the toughest of our challenges and give them a free hand to deliver results. I must commend the managing director of the Bank of Industry for being the strongest enabler of this work and under whose watch, the results have been produced. Specifically, I must applaud the growth platform team at BOI led by Mrs. Tonya Denigy, Executive Director of the Bank, with Uzoma Huakwa as its Chief Operating Officer. Aptly, Tonya and Uzoma are the co-authors of the Aid for Productivity reports that we are launching today, as what better people and what better people can tell that story than the individuals in the trenches who created it. They are brought to bear the best of experience and bold thinking, the depths of innovation and youth and a detailed understanding of the Nigerian spirit to build an operation and impact that has become a national pride. Of course, we've heard of the various awards that this growth platform has won in the past couple of years. The over 4 million micro-small and medium enterprises impacted to date, and the several more to come, I direct testament to their hard work. Finally, I must acknowledge the pioneering partners of the growth platform on this journey for Aid Productivity. Of particular note is the Biller Melinda Gates Foundation who provided the much needed early support to the Bank of Industry to build out this operation and prepare for scale, even when its potential would have been unclear at that time to most people. Thank you for your continued support and encouragement to Nigeria. The Nigerian financial institutions, technology companies, service providers and program partners who have given the best of the expertise to this work over the years have applauded you, and we thank you also for the commitment that has enabled this growth platform not just to be built but to thrive the way that it has been thrived, and then finally to commend the Honorable Minister of Industry to that investment and his ministry for the great work that they've done in the past few years, not just nurturing Bank of Industry and all these great efforts, but the survival fund and the various other intervention programs that have been managed so expertly by the Bank of Industry, by the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment. Thank you very much. God bless you all and God bless the February public of Nigeria.