An Enabling Environment For Partnership 10th Anniversary Africas Adr

The Roundtable International, Inc. is a network of organized intelligence’ that delivers economic, business and
organizational development services and solutions across multiple channels, disciplines, logistics and cultures.
Justin Aina is an educator, corporate trainer, serial entrepreneur, organizational, business and economic development
consultant with an extensive background in international commerce. He can be reached at; jaina@roundtableint.com
1
Creating An Enabling Business Development Environment
For A Partnership Between
SME’s & The Oil Industry – The Nigerian Experience
By:
Justin Aina
Founder & Chief Operating Officer
The Roundtable International, Inc
140 Bourne Avenue
Presented @
The 1st
Negotiation & Conflict Management Group (NCMG)
African Alternative Dispute Resolution Summit
November 2, 2006
Banquet Hall, State House, Abuja, Nigeria

2
His Excellency Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, my experience
at this summit has been highly informative, educational and psychologically uplifting.
Yesterday, we were afforded the luxury of an environmental scan of the growth and development
of ADR in Africa through the pulse of some of ADR’s best practitioners.
This morning the Justices inspired us with the critical role of the judiciary in ADR.
In my humble opinion, yesterday and this morning’s special session are generative outputs of
ADR.
The title of this session, “Equity, Justice and Peace Building In Nigeria: Addressing Regional &
Institutional Challenges” are the outcomes(benefits) of the outputs of ADR – equity, justice and
peace building could be attained through the use of ADR as the basis for mitigating regional and
institutional challenges in Nigeria.
If we are weaving a tapestry of humanity with the primary objective of mankind living in
harmonious adjustment with each other, equity, justice and peace building will be its thread.
Nigeria’s small and medium enterprises (SME’s) and its oil industry are critical to the success and
sustainability of the country’s economy.
National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS I) provides the
macroeconomic framework for moving Nigeria’s economy forward.
The three legs of the framework are:
1. Empowering People
2. Promoting Private Enterprise
3. Changing the Way Government Does its Work
Empowering People is the key driver since people start and grow private enterprises and
government could be defined as a functional extension of the people it serves.
Using People Empowerment as a backdrop, an enabling business development environment for a
partnership between Nigeria’s SME’s and oil industry must start with an investigation of the
regulations that enhance and constrain business activities in Nigeria.
Since 2004, the World Bank has been profiling the regulatory environment of 175 countries
through its annual “Doing Business Reports”.

3
The report measures 10 areas affecting everyday business:
 Starting a Business
 Dealing with licenses
 Employing workers
 Registering property
 Getting credit
 Protecting investors
 Paying taxes
 Trading across borders
 Enforcing contracts
 Closing a business.
The recently released “Doing Business 2007 – How to Reform” ranks Nigeria at 108 in 2006.
According to the report:
 Dealing With Licenses: Involves 16 steps. It takes 465 days to complete the process of
complying with licensing and permit requirements at a cost of 238.19% of gross national
income.
 Getting Credit: The credit information index which measures the scope, access and quality
of credit information available through public and private bureaus is scored a zero on a
scale of 0-6.
 Paying Taxes: Businesses must make 35 payments while spending an average of 1,120
hours on tax payment activities.
It is encouraging to know that the current administration has made some noticeable
improvements that include a one stop shop to simplify the procedures required in starting and
closing a business.
The government is also dealing with the issue of multiple taxation by looking into harmonization
of taxes and fees at the federal, state and local levels.
This issue is more critical now that the non oil sector contributes 60% to Nigeria’s gross domestic
product.
Nigeria’s oil industry requires a regulatory environment that addresses the industry’s current
environmental, economic and political crises within the context of people empowerment.

4
Regulatory reform must proceed from three principles:
 Level Playing field: Means that SME’s, banks, the government and the oil industry
must be subjected to the same regulatory regime and rules.
 Functional regulations mean that regulation must focus more on functions and less
on institutions –banks will focus more on providing credit facilities to SME’s than
making a profit, government will focus more on creating an enabling than a
constraining environment and oil companies will focus more on social capital than
financial capital.
 Value added supervision: Means that regulators should be less concerned about
playing financial, legal, and community cops and more about empowering people in
the pursuit of the magic of their destiny.
The enabling environment that Nigeria creates for its SME’s and oil industry must be aligned with
the strategy articulated in its National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy.
(NEEDS).
Empowering people is the oil that lubricates the engine of Nigeria’s future.
The coming of age of this country is not predicated upon what happens to it but what happens to
it because of its people.
Why? The world is moving at the speed of light towards a global society fueled by a global
creative economy.
In this economy, creativity is the input and innovation is the output. More important than land,
capital or physical assets.
Compared with traditional accounting of physical and financial resources, creativity is about
human resource accounting.
It may be considered subjective and soft, but if we are to accept that feelings are facts to the
people who hold them and that those facts influence their behavior in our society, we must
acknowledge that soft human data can be very “hard”.
For creativity to have a maximum shelf life, it must co-exist with a people empowerment
environment.
People empowerment is not driven by “efficient” output as defined by NEEDS(health, education,
integrated rural development , housing development, employment and youth development etc)
but rather by the effective outcomes(benefits) imbedded in an asset based economic
development orientation.

5
This orientation sees micro, small and medium enterprises and the indigenous residents of an oil
producing community from an agricultural paradigm.
It sees them as living, growing people.
You cannot fix people by replacing non working parts (mechanic paradigm); they are nurtured
over time to produce the desired results of making a contribution to their society.
These desired results can only be created if governments, banks, business development
organizations and oil companies become gardeners.
The gardener knows that there is life within the seed, subsequently, he creates the conditions –
correct soil, temperature, adequate sunshine, water, fertilizer, weeding, cultivation and time that
maximizes growth.
So how do we do this and how have we done this?
It requires creativity and innovation.
Creativity is the generation of fresh new ideas (input), while innovation is the translation of those
ideas into something tangible – the creation of a sustainable enterprise.
In an oil producing community, creativity is the generation of fresh new ideas that is local and
homegrown (input), while output (innovation) could be the translation of those ideas into a
business enterprise.
Creativity and Innovation together is the continuous process of asking questions.
Questions are more important than answers because humanity has never been able to solve its
problems with its present level of understanding.
It is our present level of understanding that is responsible for our problems in the first place;
otherwise we will be walking on the carpet of a world covered with equity, justice and peace
building.
This continuous process of asking questions requires a host of characters and personas that can
be broken into three categories:
Category One – Learning Persona:
1. Anthropologist: Observes human behavior and develops deep understanding of how
people interact physically and emotionally with their environment

6
 There can be no value added supervision, if regulators do not understand what is
important to SME’s and oil producing communities
 Extending credit to SME’s should not be driven by credit worthiness but rather by an
experiential understanding of how an entrepreneur operates in his natural habitat.
 Providing business building support requires service providers to understand the pain
the entrepreneur is facing and ask the entrepreneur how he wants that pain to be
mitigated.
 Empowering the residents of an oil producing community requires the oil companies
to go and live with them for a while.
At Urban Ventures, a business building network with a portfolio of 45 small and medium
enterprises, our entrepreneur coaches spend a week trying to understand the business and critical
issues facing each entrepreneur. They cannot proceed until they can articulate each critical issue
to the entrepreneur’s satisfaction.
On December 15 & 16, 2004, I, together with Roundtable Chairman Robert Leaver co-facilitated a
Securities and Exchange Commission and Central Bank of Nigeria Mergers and Acquisition
workshop for Nigeria’s banking executives. Both days were spent trying to get an understanding
of the issues important to these bankers who were faced with complying with an increase in
capitalization.
Category Two – Organizing Personas:
The world has moved away from a traditional notion of organizational capacity and structure.
Businesses are organizing around functions rather than companies.
They focus on what they are good at and partner for solutions.
1. The Hurdler: Knows the path to innovation is strewn with obstacles and develops a knack
for overcoming or outsmarting those roadblocks.
 At Urban Ventures, it is the Director of Business Development who is emotionally
and psychologically sold on the entrepreneur, has an extensive network of resources
and the authority to mobilize these resources.
 At an oil company, it is that Executive who is emotionally aligned with the
indigenous residents of the oil producing community and has the network and
authority to mobilize resources on behalf of that community.

7
 At a business development services organization, it is the coach who creates an
environment within which the entrepreneur can find customized and integrated
solutions to his problems.
 At the bank, it is that credit manager, who is not handicapped by rules but inspired
by the unique and complexity of the problems the entrepreneur faces.
2. The Collaborator: Helps bring people together and often leads from the middle of the pack
to create new combinations.
 At Urban Ventures it is the Entrepreneur Coach, who facilitates the growth and
development of each entrepreneur.
 At the Roundtable it is the Team Leader, who assembles a group of
multidisciplinary practitioners.
 At an oil producing community, it could be that leader or organizer who is loved
and respected by his neighbors.
 In public or private enterprise, it is the rainmaker who can mobilize resources and
know how.
Category Three – Implementation Personas:
1. The Experience Architect: Designs compelling experiences beyond mere functionality to
connect at a deeper level with latent or expressed needs.
 At Urban Ventures, it is the Industry Mentor who has been where the entrepreneur
wants to go because he operates/has operated a successful company in the same
industry as the entrepreneur.
 At the Roundtable, it is the associate who has worked in the client’s industry
 At an oil producing community, it is those residents who have a deep seated
awareness and experience dealing with the external community
 At an oil company, it is that executive who has worked with residents in other oil
producing communities.
 In the public sector, it is the serial entrepreneur who has transitioned into public
service.

8
2. The Technicians: Help to design and coordinate the process crucial to the implementation
of objectives.
 At Urban Ventures, it is the marketing, finance and operations members of the
implementation team working in tandem with youth interns.
 At the Roundtable, it is the members of the “working team”
 At an oil producing community, it is the field operatives.
 At a micro or a small or medium enterprise, it is functional experts who are giving
back by volunteering their time and resources for the benefit of the entrepreneur.
3. The Storyteller: Builds both internal morale and external awareness through compelling
narratives.
 It is the visionary entrepreneur.
 It is also the elders in the oil producing community. They consider philosophy as
timeless wisdom and history as an event that keeps repeating itself. They see their
role as holding the ground while the children go crazy.
Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens!!
Wisdom is often born in the shadows, frequently more visible in the darkness, than the light.
The stadium lights of knowledge that seek to eliminate the cycles of night and day, death and
rebirth, sorrow and joy, do not cast shadows – they only provide a steady glare of illumination
into:
FOOTPRINTS
One night, a man had a dream and in his dream, he reviewed the footsteps he has taken in his
life.
He looked and noticed that all over the mountains and difficult places that he has traveled,
there was one set of footprints, as if someone had walked by his side.
He turned to God and said, “There is something I don’t understand. Why is it that down the
hills and over the smooth and easy places you have walked by my side, but here over the
tough and difficult places, I have walked alone for I see in those areas, there is just one set of
footprints?”
God turned to the man and said, “It is that while your life was easy I walked along your side,
but here, where the walking was hard and the paths were difficult was the time I carried you.”

9
Are you ready to carry somebody today?
You ask why?
Because that is the only way you can taste their story from the salt of the tears that fall down
their cheeks!!

An Enabling Environment For Partnership 10th Anniversary Africas Adr

Recommandé

Recommandé

Contenu connexe

Tendances

Tendances (20)

Similaire à An Enabling Environment For Partnership 10th Anniversary Africas Adr

Similaire à An Enabling Environment For Partnership 10th Anniversary Africas Adr (20)

An Enabling Environment For Partnership 10th Anniversary Africas Adr