SMEs FINANCING SURVIVAL — CLEAN TECHNOLOGY HUB COVID-19 SCENARIO
By Ifeoma Anene and Ifeoma Malo
There is no argument that the unprecedented pandemic has negatively affected millions of people across the globe in many ways — personally, professionally, and socially. The impact of the pandemic on organizations and businesses is still being quantified. Furthermore, national governments are struggling to grapple with the costs and damages the Covid19 pandemic is wrecking on families, communities, and businesses; and with millions of people out of work due to closures in business and a severely crippled economy, people are left with either of two choices:
- To resign oneself or business to fate and wait in hope for things to get better before thinking of what next steps to take.
- Sit back, brainstorm, and restrategize on how best to survive, and stay above water during and after this pandemic.
Millions of SMEs have been hit hard by the pandemic, and with SMEs accounting for more than half of most countries’ GDP and responsible for nearly seven out of ten jobs, the ripple effect is being felt globally.
Clean Tech Hub as an SME is a hybrid hub with our major operations focused on community projects to drive energy access and advance Climate Change. This means that our work had us traveling to peri-urban, rural, and deep rural communities across Nigeria as part of our advocacy, training, and outreach work. On March 22nd, 2020, Nigeria instituted a partial lockdown, and with many states basically banning interstate travel for almost 10 months, our operations were greatly impacted by this pandemic and the shutdown, with us being cut off from the poor and rural communities that we serve. As an SME impacted by this pandemic, how did we survive and continue to stay in business amidst the chaos and uncertainty wrought by Covid19?
At the beginning of the pandemic, and subsequently leading into the extensive lockdown, Clean Technology Hub braced herself for impact — understanding that to survive that there was the need to be adaptable and find new ways to shift our business operations, keep our projects going and keep our staff members resourced and paid. Despite the panic of some clients reviewing or in some cases abandoning their contracts with us, due to funding constraints, as well as several grantors halting their funding for different projects, the big question became — How Then Do We Survive?
Our first resolution and approach was to become flexible and be ready to change the dynamics of our business operation. Our first action was to transfer a lot of our activities to online virtual meetings — A good example is the All On/CTH enterprise Development Program Project which commenced with an ideation bootcamp earlier this year, which kicked off with physical pitches by innovators in the Clean energy space with the pitches occurring in the cities of Aba and Uyo. The second stage was to host a physical incubation support training program, however this Incubation program was held virtually — through webinars and virtual classroom activities. This has helped us to stay on course with the program, whilst complying with health authorities guidelines on physical and social distancing.
Furthermore, during the lockdown, CTH also kicked started and launched its volunteer network and leveraged her volunteer network to reach and check-in with our communities of practice whom we serve or partner within rural areas. Through our volunteer networks, we were able to connect these communities with several community-based palliative and outreach held by our partner organizations working in the healthcare, donor, food and agriculture, and education sectors. This robust volunteer network continues to carry out projects across states in Nigeria for and in the name of Clean Technology Hub.
Another approach to navigating the Covid 19 situation includes brainstorming and coming up with an E-learning academy — a virtual learning platform to harness the opportunities created by Covid-19. This platform is developed to be a go-to-e-learning platform, with digital-based learning resources, at a subsidized fee, on topics around renewable energy, environment, and climate change across Africa. The launch of this program is facilitated with the help of the CBN loan application palliative targeted for households and Small and Medium Scale Enterprises.
While we have focused on retaining existing clients as much as possible, we have also engaged in aggressive marketing and expanding our audience base and being adaptive in our products, and services through free online webinars and encouraging staff to actively engage in other external training, webinars, and learning activities. These have in turn expanded our skills and knowledge internally, as well as our network, whilst generating new partners and clientele across the board.
The innovation and adaptability put in place at Clean Technology Hub are making it stand solidly against the bulwark of the negative impact of Covid-19.
Ifeoma Anene is the Assistant Manager, Accounts/Finance at Clean Technology Hub
Ifeoma Malo is the Co-founder and CEO of Clean Technology Hub.
