Matilda Ndu Mmegwa, named the 2025 winner of the UKRI-ESRC Impact Award
Matilda Ndu Mmegwa has been named the 2025 winner of the UKRI-ESRC Impact Award for her PhD research at Coventry University, titled “Driving Growth for SMEs Via The Use of Sustainable Finance: The Case of Nigeria.”
The award recognises her work advancing sustainable finance for Nigerian SMEs, promoting economic growth, innovation, and inclusivity.
The ESRC-IAA panel praised her research as ambitious and impactful, highlighting its potential to tackle challenges facing SMEs, including access to finance, unfavourable policies, and informal business practices.
Mmegwa’s study examined the Nigerian sustainable finance ecosystem, focusing on banks, financial products, their deployment to SMEs, and the broader socioeconomic impact.
Her findings identified four core themes: ecosystem functionality, distribution, sustainability, and gaps in practice. Based on this, she proposed a new Sustainable Finance model to improve efficiency, de-risk SMEs, and foster digital transformation across the supply and demand sides of the SF ecosystem.
The research calls for ecosystem-based policies that move beyond government grants and interventions, encouraging collaboration among banks, SMEs, corporates, enablers, and policymakers. Implementing these insights, the study suggests, can drive SME growth, create jobs, enhance competitiveness and contribute to sustainable development across Nigeria.
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