Summit Agenda

MSME and the Informal Economy

Nigeria's informal economy is not a liability to be regulated but a productive asset to be unlocked. The challenge is not that millions of Nigerian businesses remain informal; it is that too few have pathways to become productive, financeable and competitive. Sustainable growth requires shifting from compliance-driven formalisation to incentive-based transformation, expanding access to finance, markets, technology and business capabilities for MSMEs to scale, create quality jobs and drive inclusive economic growth.

Inclusive Growth in the Digital Age

Digital transformation is reshaping economies globally, yet millions of Nigerians remain excluded from its benefits. Expanding digital access, strengthening digital public infrastructure, and leveraging technology-enabled social protection can accelerate inclusion, create economic opportunities, improve service delivery, and ensure that women, youth, and vulnerable populations participate meaningfully in growth and prosperity.

Building Nigeria's Future Workforce

Workforce transformation in Nigeria requires stronger alignment between education systems and labour market demands. Bridging tertiary education, TVET, and industry will require curriculum renewal, stronger skills development, improved internships and clearer employment pathways. These reforms are critical to building a future-ready workforce capable of driving productivity, competitiveness and inclusive economic growth.

Financing the Future of the Federation

As fiscal pressures heighten and debt-servicing costs rise, Nigerian states must build sustainable and diversified financing models. Stronger subnational revenue mobilisation, responsible borrowing, innovative financing instruments and governance reforms will be critical to funding infrastructure, improving social services and supporting long-term development across all 36 states.

Rising Together Initiative: From Trade to Value Chains: Building Regional Industries that Compete Globally

Africa trades with the world but barely with itself. Intra-African trade sits below 15% of total trade not because demand is absent but because regional industries do not yet exist at scale. The real opportunity is not more trade agreements but integrated manufacturing, African businesses building together what they currently import separately.

From Commitment to Collective Action: Building Nigeria's Partnership Ecosystem for Children

Despite decades of policies, programmes and investments, child outcomes in Nigeria remain uneven because implementation is fragmented across institutions, sectors and financing streams. This session explores how government, business, philanthropy, development partners and civil society can build an integrated partnership ecosystem that delivers measurable improvements in child wellbeing and accelerates shared prosperity.

Macroeconomic Stability Imperative: Aligning Monetary and Fiscal Policies for Growth

Conflicting monetary and fiscal signals undermine investor confidence, distort market incentives, and stifle long-term productivity. Achieving macroeconomic stability demands strict policy alignment, where disciplined spending reinforces inflation-targeting measures. Without a unified policy front, structural reforms remain ineffective, capital flight accelerates, and economic resilience collapses under volatility.

Investment Partnership Lab: Mobilising Strategic Partnerships and Innovative Financing for Transport Trade Infrastructure

The current infrastructure gap in Nigeria cannot be closed through public budgets alone. The Nigeria–EU Global Gateway Investment Partnership Lab can bridge priority projects with the capital, guarantees, technical expertise and technology required to make them investment-ready, while converting development partnerships into bankable opportunities that connect productive sectors to markets, jobs and growth.

Business-Led Investment in Human Capital

Nigeria’s human capital deficits in health, education, nutrition and skills constrain growth, competitiveness and shared prosperity. Government spending alone cannot fully close them. Business must move beyond philanthropy, investing as innovators, employers and partners. Measurable, scalable investment creates talent pipelines and resilient markets. Companies that build people build national prosperity.

Helping Nigeria Prosper

Amid recent macroeconomic reforms, millions of ordinary Nigerians remain excluded from growth. Hosted by FirstBank Group, this breakfast session explores how a recapitalised banking sector can bridge the gap between economic reforms and tangible results by channelling affordable credit to MSMEs, driving financial inclusion, and fostering shared national prosperity.

When Transnationals Invest: Scaling Skills, Jobs and Inclusive Opportunities

Nigeria cannot achieve shared prosperity through fragmented philanthropy, however large its footprint. The real test is whether corporate social investment converts scale into system capability—linking skills to jobs, entrepreneurs to markets, and social interventions to lasting productivity gains. Philanthropic capital must therefore crowd in institutions, evidence and investment, not substitute for them.

Survival to Scale: Unlocking Productive Capital, Capability and Markets for Nigeria's Enterprises

Enterprise growth will remain constrained if finance is treated as the solution rather than one part of a wider ecosystem. The real challenge is to connect capital with capability, markets, technology and risk protection, enabling viable firms to formalise, invest, create quality jobs and scale. Growth finance must become growth infrastructure.

Creating Zones of Economic Opportunity for Displaced Persons

Inclusive growth cannot be achieved while insecurity keeps productive assets idle and millions of displaced people excluded from economic activity. The imperative is to shift from humanitarian containment to economic mobilisation, de-risking investment, restoring productive systems and integrating displaced and host communities into jobs, enterprise and markets as contributors to national prosperity.

Scaling that Works

Reform dividend will remain elusive unless proven solutions move beyond pilots into scaled delivery. The challenge is not identifying what works, but overcoming fragmented mandates, weak coordination, financing gaps and implementation bottlenecks. Private-sector leadership must therefore build coalitions that replicate successful models, assign accountability and deliver measurable outcomes within defined timelines.

Beyond Inclusion: Scaling Non-Interest Finance for Jobs and Shared Prosperity

Expanding non-interest finance can broaden access to capital by offering alternatives to conventional interest-based lending, while mobilising ethical, asset-backed and risk-sharing investment. The opportunity lies in moving beyond a niche financial product to a mainstream financing ecosystem that supports businesses, infrastructure, housing and inclusive growth through innovative and accessible instruments.

CEO Forum: The Business of Scale

Unlocking private investment and enabling businesses to scale will require reforms that strengthen competitiveness, expand job-creating sectors and deepen government-business collaboration. Practical actions to accelerate enterprise growth, improve productivity and create an enabling environment for inclusive economic development will be central to achieving growth at scale.

Productivity Revolution for Growth

Nigeria's economy is growing, yet productivity remains low across agriculture, manufacturing, and much of the services sector. Agricultural yields lag global benchmarks, manufacturing competitiveness continues to weaken, and technology adoption remains uneven. Delivering sustained prosperity will require a productivity revolution driven by strategic financing, AI-enabled digital transformation, and technology-led competitiveness that enables firms to produce more, compete globally, and create quality jobs at scale.

Law as Infrastructure: Building Predictability into Public-Private Partnerships

Nigeria’s infrastructure public-private partnerships (PPPs) continue to fall short of their potential, largely due to persistent gaps in predictability. Strengthening legal, regulatory, judicial and administrative frameworks is critical to building the institutional certainty required to attract private capital, improve PPP delivery and support Nigeria’s long-term economic growth.

Rethinking the Tax Contract: Building Trust, Fairness and Compliance

Tax reform will not deliver sustainable revenue if taxpayers see the system as unfair, opaque or disconnected from public value. The central challenge is to rebuild the fiscal social contract: make compliance simpler, taxation more equitable and government more accountable, so that increased revenue reflects greater trust rather than greater enforcement alone.

Human Capital for Shared Prosperity

Nigeria has 18.3 million children out of school, a life expectancy of 55 years, and 3.5 million young people entering the labour market annually into an economy that cannot absorb them. A Human Capital Compact built around specific, state-level commitments can help convert Nigeria’s demographic weight into productive power by strengthening education, health, skills and pathways to economic participation.

Building Integrated Industrial Ecosystems

Nigeria suffers from weak economic linkages. Growth remains shallow because production systems are fragmented, value addition is limited, domestic supply chains are weak, and sectors operate with minimal integration. Sustainable jobs, productivity growth, export competitiveness, and industrial transformation require the deliberate construction of integrated industrial ecosystems rather than isolated sector interventions.

Lunch

CEO Luncheon

The Summit’s impact should extend beyond formal sessions into relationships that unlock action. A strategically curated CEO Luncheon can convert high-level access into stronger public-private partnerships, candid problem-solving and new investment opportunities. Its value lies not in networking for its own sake, but in creating the trust and connections required to move ideas into action.

Nigeria's Industrial Policy: Sector Reforms and Measurable Economic Outcomes

Industrial competitiveness depends not on policy direction alone, but on reforms that lower production costs, improve regulatory coherence and address infrastructure gaps. Using the non-alcoholic drinks sector as a pilot, the session will advance a government-led, evidence-based reform agenda to unlock investment, boost productivity, create jobs and strengthen sustainable revenue generation.

Reform to Capital Mobilisation: Unlocking the Next Wave of Productive Investment in Nigeria

Reforms must now translate into productive investment, industrial expansion and jobs. Macroeconomic stability alone cannot deliver shared prosperity without policy consistency, regulatory predictability, reliable infrastructure and bankable projects. Mobilising domestic and foreign long-term capital requires credible implementation, effective de-risking mechanisms and stronger public-private partnerships to unlock productivity, exports and sustainable growth.

Competitive States, Competitive Nigeria

Nigerian states shape the daily business environment through regulations and services. While FAAC allocations grew from ₦3.58 trillion in 2023 to ₦5.81 trillion in 2024, increased funds do not guarantee competitiveness. This roundtable unites leaders to evaluate business friendliness, validate reforms, and translate efficient public services into investment and jobs.

Investing in Nigeria's Productive Future

Nigeria’s ability to drive jobs, competitiveness and inclusive growth will depend on its capacity to channel long-term capital into productive sectors. Unlocking domestic and foreign investment, deepening infrastructure and strengthening market confidence will require practical reforms, strategic partnerships and innovative financing models that support sustained productivity, value creation and shared prosperity.

Powering Growth: Reliable Electricity for Industry and Prosperity

Nigeria cannot deliver a productivity revolution or industrialise at scale without reliable and affordable electricity. Power is simultaneously critical economic infrastructure, determining the competitiveness of manufacturers, farmers, digital businesses and service providers, and critical social infrastructure, shaping household welfare, education, healthcare and economic participation.

Unlocking Nigeria's Oil Potential: The Push for More Oil

The transformation of Nigeria’s oil and gas industry is creating opportunities far beyond crude production and fuel supply. New refining capacity, petrochemicals, gas development and the emergence of new investment opportunities can deepen domestic capital participation, strengthen local businesses and create new wealth. The challenge is converting these opportunities into broad-based Nigerian ownership.

From Safety Net to Springboard: Reimagining Nigeria's Social Protection System

Social protection must move beyond cushioning households from shocks to enabling them to escape vulnerability permanently. Without stronger links to skills, jobs, enterprise, finance and essential services, safety nets risk institutionalising dependence. The priority should be an integrated system that protects incomes today while building capabilities, productivity and pathways to sustainable livelihoods tomorrow.

CEO Water Mandate: From Mandate to Action: Securing Nigeria's Water Future for Sustainable Growth

Economic water scarcity and devastating floods across 28 states threaten Nigeria's food security and industrial productivity. Addressing this crisis requires urgent private-sector leadership through the CEO Water Mandate. By driving collective water stewardship and sanitation investments, business action can transform fragmented water resources management into a resilient, growth-sustaining asset.