I read about this sometime ago.

The Federal Government yesterday signed an agreement with the Lagos Business School for the training of Nigerians in the field of entrepreneurship.

The programme titled Grooming Enterprise Leadership will be financed by the World Bank.

The Minister of Finance, Olusegun Aganga, signed on behalf of Nigeria.

The agreement commits the Entrepreneurship Development Centre of the Pan African University, Lagos, to train Nigerians who want to go into business, on the basics of entrepreneurship.

The essence is to help them transform their business ideas into bankable projects that could be financed from the formal sector.

This strategic intervention shall build the capacity of at least 1,000 businesses in the micro, small and medium enterprise sector across the nation’s six geo-political zones by December, 2011.

The EDC shall work with 23 business incubation centers across the nation to train the budding entrepreneurs. Besides training, it shall work on the creation of clusters for these enterprises which will provide shared services and reduce their individual running costs.

On completion of their training which is expected to take about five months, these entrepreneurs shall be eligible to apply for the SME intervention fund with the Bank of Industry.

The minister of finance had last year announced the establishment of a $500 million intervention fund, by the Federal Government for SMEs. The fund domiciled with the Bank of Industry, goes to SMEs at single digit interest rate.

Please does anyone have any information about this programme. Has it started? and how can one apply for it. Thanks