…call for dedicated SME funding in national budgets
By Gloria Ikibah
A Nigerian delegate to the ECOWAS Parliament has called for a dramatic policy shift to tackle the region’s rising unemployment, urging member states to pivot their focus toward strengthening private enterprise as the engine of job creation. 
Speaking on the margins of an ongoing ECOWAS parliamentary session in Monrovia, Hon. Pascal Agbodike emphasized that long-term solutions to joblessness particularly among West Africa’s expanding youth population—lie not in government payrolls, but in empowering businesses.
“No government can employ everyone. It is the private sector that drives real development. That’s where the jobs are”, he said.
The session, which is a part of a wider review of the ECOWAS Investment Policy (EIP), highlighted the urgency of creating sustainable employment frameworks across the sub-region.
For Hon. Agbodike, this means governments must do more than offer policy rhetoric — they must embed private sector development into national planning and budgeting.
He proposed that each ECOWAS country set aside a dedicated percentage of its national budget specifically for supporting Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), citing them as a vital source of innovation and scalable employment.
“There needs to be legal backing for this. Our factory owners, our entrepreneurs — they are the ones who can absorb the unemployed and build a stronger economy. Government should support them directly and consistently”, he insisted.
As joblessness among young people continues to threaten both economic progress and social stability in the region, Agbodike offered a grounded perspective in the wider conversation on reform. He maintained that real change would come not from broad policy statements, but from direct investment in businesses, a move he believes could reshape West Africa’s employment landscape.
