Vanguard News Challenges of financing sustainable growth On By Abbe El-Josef BEYOND the entrepreneurial dreams of the founders and sponsors of Small, and Medium Enterprises, SMEs, the role that development banks play in the economies of nations in which they operate is critical. According to UNCTAD, formal MSMEs contribute 40 per cent of GDP in emerging economies. That figure is most likely to go much higher when the informal players are factored in. In Nigeria, for instance, the Bureau of Statistics estimates that a whopping 80 per cent of the entire workforce is employed by about 41 million MSMEs, and their contribution to the economy is estimated at 50 per cent.