WHO ARE WE?

SEED is the acronym for Sustainable Economic Empowerment and Development. SEED is a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) based in Abuja, Nigeria whose major objective is to facilitate and promote access to quality education for the poor and down-trodden as well as the establishment and support of micro and small businesses in Nigeria. SEED is legally registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) as a non-governmental, non-profit, non-religious and non-ethnic organization founded to help in creating jobs in the various sectors of Nigeria economy by empowering the children, youths, artisans, market women, petty traders, agro-dealers, smallholder farmers, etc through education, business support services and rural micro-infrastructure. We partner with schools, private businesses, international NGOs, associations, cooperatives and government agencies in the provision of our services aimed at supporting the poor, less-privileged and down-trodden in rural and semi-urban areas in Nigeria.

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WHY SEED?

The current socio-economic realities in Nigeria has necessitated the establishment SEED. Nigeria, with a population of over 180 million people is the most populated country in Africa and residence to the largest number of black people in the world. One in every six black person on earth is a Nigerian. Since the last four decades, Nigeria’s socioeconomic indices have continued to fall despite her abundant human and natural resources. Today, Nigeria is the poverty capital of the world where more than 80% of the populace live on less than two Dollars per day. This sordid situation could be attributed largely to the inability of the majority of the populace especially the children of the poor to access quality education, as well as challenges of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to access technical and financial support for their businesses.

 

The unemployment rate in Nigeria especially among the youth is above 40% and this is the root cause of several conflicts and social vices across the country. There are rising cases of insurgency and banditry in the north; political thuggery, ritual killings, kidnapping and armed robbery in the south. The country’s educational standard is falling especially among the government-owned schools due to poor funding, while the private schools are very expensive and beyond the reach of the poor. Given that over 70% of the country’s population is poor, there are over 70million children do not have access to quality education especially in the Northern part of the country. The poor segment of the country are involved in MSMEs as farmers, traders, artisans, etc. These MSMEs find it extremely difficult to access capital and credit to expand and grow their businesses. Every year, nearly one million graduates are produced by tertiary institutions in the country, and less than 70% of these graduates are either gainfully employed or can start their own businesses, hence the unemployment rate continues to rise. Commercial and development banks in the country can hardly provide loans and credit to start-up businesses due to the high risk involved; and government social safety nets are not sufficient.

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OUR VISION

To be the most reliable and efficient partner in providing access to quality education to the poor; and support services to MSMEs in rural and semi-urban areas in Nigeria.

 

OUR MISSION

To make quality education easily accessible to the poor and less-privileged, while providing support services to smallholder farmers and MSMEs in Nigeria. 

 

WHAT WE DO

1. To establish and manage schools in rural and semi-urban areas with high population of poor and less privilegepeople

2. To provide inspirational, educative and informative campaign and sensitization programmes in secondary and tertiary schools aimed at promoting the study of entrepreneurship and business in Nigeria;

3. To provide the dependants of smallholder rural farmers support for pre-tertiary and tertiary education and scholarships;

4. To attract scholarship funding for students studying agriculture-related programmes in tertiary institutions;

5. To source donor funds to encourage and promote graduates’ investments in agribusiness and MSMEs in a sustainable manner;

6. To provide support services for MSMEs through sensitization programmes and micro credit lending;

7. To drive financial inclusion by bringing the un-banked MSMEs into the formal banking sector through agency banking services;

8. To assist smallholder agricultural cooperatives, improve their farm productivity and incomes;

9. To promote agribusinesses through information dissemination, logistics and relevant supports to enhance their outputs and marketing;

10. To promote environmental protection and preservation through strong advocacy and extension services on conservation and organic agriculture;

11. To collaborate with relevant governmental and non-government institutions as well as other stakeholders in provision of low profile infrastructures (such as culverts, bridges, roads, etc) in rural areas that facilitates trades and other economic activities;

12. To work with relevant pressure groups (e.g. NESG) to assist in providing relevant policy directions in the education and agricultural sectors

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OUR PROJECTS

1. Dobbie Schools: A low-cost school established and built by SEED Board of Trustee (BOT) members for providing nursery and primary education for children of the poor and down-trodden in Gwagwa area, a suburb of the Federal Capital City of Abuja, Nigeria. Each pupil pays only $80 per annum as a maintenance fee. Members of SEED BOT use their own funds to supplement in the payment of teachers' salaries and in maintaining school properties. Private schools in the area is expensive and government schools are over-stretched and of poor quality. We want to equip and expand the school as well as build more of such schools in as many densely populated suburbs and rural areas in Nigeria as possible.  

2. Anchor Borrower Programme (ABP): SEED is currently assisting over 2,500 smallholder farmers cultivating over 3,000 hectares of land in four States (FCT, Nasarawa, Kogi and Benue) to access cheap loans and credit funds from the Central Bank of Nigeria under the NIRSAL ABP window. In 2018, with the assistance of NIRSAL (Nigeria Incentive-based Risk-sharing System for Agricultural Lending), 179 SEED farmers obtained ABP loan of $140,000. SEED identifies, profiles and aggregates smallholder farmers and link them to financial institutions. However, obtaining cheap funds to support these farmers is very challenging. SEED is expanding its frontiers to reach out to grant makers and equity investors who can provide cheap funds to upscale these farmers. 

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