The Minister of Finance, Dr Ahmat Jidoud chaired, Wednesday, April 5, 2023 at the Radisson Blue hotel in Niamey, according to the Nigerien Press Agency (ANP), the official award ceremony for the 13 winners of the very 1st Start competition -up and Fintech Challenge (SFC) of the Smart Villages Project for Rural Growth and Digital Inclusion (PVI).
They are 13 winners selected from among the 85 candidates belonging to 3 categories including seed SFCs benefiting from 5 million each, developing FSCs to receive between 5 to 30 million and mature FSCs with a grant of 30 to 60 million having applied for this competition which is in its very first edition launched in November 2022.
The objective of this competition is to identify the best start-ups and fintechs in Niger and in the sub-region through the evaluation of the solutions they offer to accelerate the financial inclusion of the Nigerien populations, in particular women and producers in rural areas.
While presiding over this ceremony, the Minister of Finance, Mr. Ahmat Jidoud recalled that ”the Program of the President of the Republic aims to significantly reduce poverty by allowing the creation of jobs in particular for young people and for women through the deep digital transformation of our economy.
Also, he continued, “this ambition is found at the level of Axis 5 of the General Policy Statement of the Government precisely through the development of digital infrastructures, Program passing through the digital opening up and the administrative villages of the Niger, the promotion of the use of e-services in urban and rural areas to boost financial inclusion in particular, the creation of an environment favorable to the local development of digital content and support for local start-ups”.
“This demonstrates in more than one way the importance that our highest authorities attach to the development of new technologies and digital technology for the acceleration of economic growth and poverty reduction,” he said. he explains.
Previously, the Resident Representative of the World Bank in Niger, Mr. Han Fraeters took the floor to underline that this “financial inclusion is an objective of the government of Niger, shared by the World Bank which agreed to finance the PVI for a amount of 100 million dollars, or nearly 60 billion FCFA, half of which in the form of a donation.
According to him, “this structuring project for digital projects in Niger will make it possible to achieve broadband internet coverage in more than 2,100 rural localities in Niger, i.e. nearly two million people.
Also, this project will boost the ecosystem of digital finance conducive to increasing it in Niger.
Mr. Fraeters to found, moreover, the hope that the digital sector could be a transformative sector for Niger and this project makes it possible to support the three categories of winners of this competition.
As for the representative of the PVI Coordinator, Ms. Haoua Souley, she for her part welcomed the importance given to this ceremony by the Minister of Finance as well as the World Bank for its financial support.
”Since the implementation of the project on October 21, 2020, the PVI with the support of the National Agency for the Information Society (ANSI) has been implementing several activities through 4 main components, with the objectives of: improving broadband digital connectivity and bringing digital financial services to unserved populations,” she recalled.
Thus in this context, she underlined, “it is planned to create 150 Multiservice Digital Centers before the end of 2025, of which 72 are already in service to date, distributed in all regions of Niger”.
On another level, Ms. Souley announced that ”the studies for the creation of digital data platforms are finalized and we will launch the Calls for Tenders files in the coming weeks”.
While congratulating the 13 winners of this 1st edition, Ms. Souley announced to those who were not selected that the PVI intends to launch another SFC 2023 edition, ”and we strongly encourage them to mature their files for the next editing”.