In furtherance of his desire to share Nigeria's locally-abundant human capital with the rest of Africa and the world, and to diversify into non-oil revenue sources, the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, GCFR, initiated a National Outsourcing Programme.

2. The Presidential Committee on Capacity Building for Outsourcing under this program held a one day stakeholder consultation meeting on Wednesday, October, 19, 2005. The objectives of the meeting were,

(i) to brainstorm on the training needs of Nigerian companies and organizations with potential to offer quality outsourcing services.
(ii) To propose strategies for meeting such training needs.
(iii) To advise on the take-off plan of the National Outsourcing Training Institute.
(iv) To review the draft Training Programme of the Proposed National Outsourcing Training Institute.
(v) To prepare an initial database of outsourcing companies in Nigeria.
(vi) To suggest modalities for stimulating the development of more outsourcing companies and
(vii) To propose marketing strategies for Nigeria's outsourcing companies.

3. The meeting was attended by participants from companies/institutions already offering or have potentials to offer quality service in the following areas (among others):

(i) Website Design, Development & Marketing Outsourcing.
(ii) Graphic Design, Presentation & Multimedia Outsourcing.
(iii) Programme, Software & Database Outsourcing.
(iv) Game Design & Development Outsourcing.
(v) Networking, Hardware & Telephony Outsourcing.
(vi) Engineering, CAD & Architecture Outsourcing.
(vii) Writing, editing & Translation Outsourcing.
(viii) Business Consulting Outsourcing.
(ix) Finance & Accounting Outsourcing.
(x) Sales & Marketing Outsourcing.
(xi) Business process Outsourcing (BPO) Outsourcing.
(xii) Advertising & Broadcasting Outsourcing.
(xiii) Illustration & Art Outsourcing.
(xiv) Photograph & Videography Outsourcing.
(xv) Fashion, Interior, Landscape Design Outsourcing.
(xvi) Legal/Law Outsourcing.
(xvii) Manufacturing & Industry Outsourcing.

4. The stakeholders meeting under the chairmanship of the Executive Secretary of the NUC, Prof. Peter Okebukola, considered the draft report of the Presidential Committee on Capacity Building for Outsourcing which basically dealt with the issue on para 2 above. In terms of strategies and marketing, the issue of involving the Nigerian Diaspora featured significantly. In bring this to the attention of NIDO and the larger Nigerian Diaspora, it is with the hope that Nigerian professionals abroad especially professionals in the ICT and other related areas can contribute to the success of this initiative. Any Nigerian Diaspora that may wish to participate or be involved in helping translate this initiative into reality or that has some ideas and suggestions to offer can contact the Executive Secretary of the NUC or the NNVS.

5. The outsourcing initiative comes as the Ministerial Committee on Software Development in Nigeria is set to present its report to the President. Already, the Nigerian government as a measure of its committee has donated a section of the former Federal Secretariat in Ikoyi Lagos to the software Committee led by Mr. Jim Ovia, the Manger Director/CEO of Zenith Bank for development of a software park. Both committees ( a joint public-private sector partnership) are hoping for the Nigerian Diaspora participation and involvement.

6. If you receive this, kindly help circulate this to as many Nigerians and Nigerian groups in the Diaspora as possible.

Joe Keshi
Coordinator (NNVS)

www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa