The Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry's Business Entrepreneurship Skills and Technology (BEST) Centre was among the top five Education and Training projects from 73 entries that made it to the finals of the World Chamber Competition 2019 in Rio June 2019.

1. ABUJA CHAMBER OF
COMMERCE AND
INDUSTRY CAPACITY
DEVELOPMENT PROJECT
(ACCI CDP)
ICC World Chamber
Competition
Presented by Prof. Adesoji Adesugba, DBA

2. INTRODUCTION
The Abuja Chamber of Commerce
and Industry is a non-partisan, non-
sectarian and member-funded
organization, established with the
aim of enhancing the growth and
development of businesses in FCT
Abuja Nigeria and its environment.
The Chambers energies are directed
by the interests of the business
community and the general public.

3. ACCI Capacity
Development Project
As a Chamber with the objectives of
ensuring sustainable growth of member
companies and the society, it was
discovered from several interactions,
meetings, surveys that one of the major
challenges faced by member companies is
capacity development of their employees to
meet up with expected standards.
Most employees either lack adequate on-
the-job competence or require training and
retraining to enhance productivity.

4. The Capacity Development Project
was initially targeted at member
companies of the chamber. The project
started in 2015 with a conference on
Information Communication
Technology birthing a company named
farmcrowdy. Farmcrowdy presently
employs over 11,000 rural farmers
through the use of ICT.
Our Programs

5. BEST Centre
The Chamber established a Centre named
Business Entrepreneurship Skills and
Technology (BEST) to carry on the business
of educating the business community and
developing capacity.
BEST Centre provides capacity development
services in business management and
leadership, entrepreneurship, vocational and
technical education.

6. Goal of BEST Centre
To develop the capacity of the business
community in various subjects and
Activities; that will help businesses and
proprietors within the Chamber and its
environs to improve on the operation of
their businesses.

7. The Entrepreneurship Development
Training
According to Trading Economics (2019), youth unemployment rate in Nigeria has
increased to 36.5%. To create employment, the chamber in partnership with the
United Nations Development Organization (UNIDO) and Hewlett Packard (HP) -
Learning for Initiative (HP-LIFE) program, ensures all participants of vocational
training are also equipped with entrepreneurial and business development skills to
enable them transform skills into a successful business.

8. Meet Our
Team
The Chamber through the Capacity Development Project
went into partnership with the Nigerian-German Dual
Vocational program through the Delegation of German
Industries and Commerce in Nigeria (AHK). Over 300
employees of member companies are now trained on
Industrial Electronics, Industrial Mechanics, Technical
Facility Management and Office Administration.
Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET)

9. Focus of
TVET
• Improving vocational education quality within
Nigerian enterprises by a smart combination of
theory and practice
• Improving employability amongst Nigerian
youth and poverty reduction
• transfer of technical know-how
• Improvement of quality and services of
companies involved.
• The project was recorded successful as
participants of the training exhibit improvement
in carrying out their functions.

10. #BEST1000 PROGRAM
• A survey was carried out and over 4000
youth indicated interest in learning a new
skill but had inadequate or no funds to pay
for it.
• The BEST Centre sought partnership and
collaboration with donors and funding
agencies to train Nigerian youths.

12. BEST1000
In 2018, the BEST1000 Program was
launched. The purpose of the program is
to train 1000 Nigerians (young persons
btw 16-35 yrs, women, and physically
challenged) in various vocations within a
year.
The BEST 1000 program commenced with
ICT vocational skills training initiative
targeted at correcting critical skills gap by
focusing on transportable and hands-on
skill acquisition to equip Nigerian youth
to create wealth by taking advantage of
existing opportunities within the
immediate environment.
Information
Communication
Technology Vocational
Skill
 In partnership with the Skills
Development for Youth Employment
(SKYE) project of the Deutsche
Gesellschaft fur Internationale
Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), the first batch
of the BEST1000 program trained 120
youths between the ages 18 to 30 in
six ICT vocations;
 Digital Marketing
 Graphics Design and Printing
 Photography
 System Administration
 Website Design
 Web App Development

13. BEST1000 PROGRAM
OBJECTIVES
The overall goal of the initiative is to improve the quality, enterprise
readiness and market competitiveness of youths venturing into the
labour market, with the following specific objectives:
 Promote Technical Adeptness
 Enable Subject Matter Expertise
 Cultivate Career Focus
 Ensure Industry and Market Fit
 Incubation & Acceleration Programme.
 Development Freelance Locator/Job Matching app

14. Impact of the Program
 Acceleration of capacity building
 Deepening of vocational-technical skills
 Strengthening of vocational technical
teaching in Nigerian
 Development of skilled ICT professionals
 Establishment of ICT-based human
infrastructure
 Structure of substantial value for
technologically-advanced workforce
Some of the short
term and long
term impact of the
program are:
 Creation of economic viability

15. Farmcrowdy
An initiative of ACCI
First digital agriculture platform
empowers rural farmers by providing them
with improved seedlings, farm inputs,
training on modern farming techniques
and
provides a market for the sale of their farm
produce.
Overall, gives the farmers the capacity to
farm more acres and by extension leads to
increased food production and security in
Africa.

16. TRAINING UNDER BEST CENTRE PROGRAM
French Lessons
French is known as the fifth
most widely spoken language in
the world. Nigeria is English
speaking, surrounded by French
speaking countries. The
business community is therefore
faced with a significant language
barrier that influence trade in the
region.

17. TRAINING UNDER BEST CENTRE PROGRAM
French Lessons
The BEST Centre organizes
French language classes for
business persons;
with the aim of enhancing
effective communication for
international relations and to
develop valuable skills for
negotiation in the business
community.

18. MENTORING AND
CONTINUED SUPPORT
The ACCI BEST Centre
provides mentoring and
continued support to
individuals who have
participated in any of the
training sessions. The objective
is to provide support to those
who wish to develop or
improve their skills to reach full
potential

19. Capital City Hub
Capital City Hub is a continued
support initiative established to
provide support for start-ups,
innovators and entrepreneurs within
Abuja and the environ. The Hub
comprises a mix of flexible work
spaces, workshops, hot desks, co-
working opportunities, training,
presentation and conference
facilities with high speed internet
access.

20. wefitwork
WEFITWORK is a
freelance services
marketplace application
that connects all training
participants willing to offer
their services to customers
in Abuja Nigeria

21. JOB FAIR
At the end of each training
batch, the BEST center
organizes a job fair where
the trainees are
showcased to employers
of labor for possible
technical hiring
opportunities.

22. Thank You