Microcredit as a Strategy for Nigeria’s Economic Recovery in Post Covid-19 Pandemic Era

Abstract

The economic growth recovery in Nigeria’s post COVID-19 era should not only be the concern of government or top individuals in the society, but should also be the concern of individuals from below. The small producers could only be integrated into the key concerns of national economic recovery through microcredit. This study investigated the effect of microfinance bank’s loan (used as a proxy for microcredit) on Banks’ contributions to real GDP (used as a measure of economic growth) in Nigeria, with a focus on the quarterly aggregate data of all the MFBs operating in Nigeria as at 2011 to 2023, to serve as the basis for determining the effectiveness of microcredit as a strategy for Nigeria’s economic growth recovery in post COVID-19 era. Ex-post facto research design was employed and secondary data were used. Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) long run form and bound test technique was adopted for data analysis/test of hypothesis. Results revealed a positive and non-significant effect of microfinance bank loans on banks contributions to GDP in Nigeria. This implied that microcredit could serve as a stimulant for Nigeria’s growth recovery in post covid-19 era, in the long run. The study recommended the strengthening of the implementation capacity of already existed intervention programmes and schemes targeting the provision of credits to the poor and small producers in Nigeria, by the CBN. The recommendation above could be actionable through the creation of additional sensitization programmes by the CBN through microfinance banks, regarding such programmes. Also, strict penalty should be given to any MFB that default compliance to those programmes.