This was during a workshop to introduce participants to the innovative management solutions of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) in Douala on February 28.

Some 20 managers of small and medium-sized enterprises, government agencies, local councils, and the media acquired innovative skills expected to improve their business performance and the national economy. This event that was meant to introduce Business Edge Capacity Building products, an innovation of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), was successfully attended by the business community, as well as local and government agencies.

The training took the participants around the five managerial competences, which include human resources management, accounting and financial management, operations management, commercial management and personal productivity. These products comprise 41 modules the most recent of them covering the emerging sectors of Hospitality and tourism.

Representative of the IFC (the private sector arm of the World Bank), Ferdinand Ngobounan, said the products are used to develop the capacity of SMEs which are the major contributors to the corporate value chain either as suppliers, distributors, customers or members. He explained that the methodology is similar to that of projects development whereby the training needs are identified, the modules and activities are customised to address the problems identified, then delivery/training implementation, immediate evaluation and post training monitoring and impact evaluation follows to assure the resolution of identified problems.

Several corporate deals have been signed in Cameroon the most recent being the deal between IFC and the Cameroon Development Corporation that is designed to train small holder farmers. Also Business Edge has been used in Cameroon through the African Development Bank’s AMSCO-supervised GOWE programme to train over 400 Women of SMEs.

Bibiana Mbuh Taku, CEO of Diversity Management & Consulting, speaking on “Influencing in your company: Influencing and the role of a leader”, underscored the aptitudes, skills, strategies, authority and mastery of company’s culture/policy required to influence and attain planned objectives often resulted in most participants yearning for more. The forum came up at a moment when public-private partnership is being highlighted as a strong tool required to develop and build SMEs, in view of Cameroon’s 2035 Vision that counts on SMEs as the driving force.