User:Godwin Ehigiamusoe/sandbox

Godwin Ehigiamusoe is the founder and former Managing Director of Lift Above Poverty Organisation (LAPO) Microfinance Bank Limited. For nearly three decades, the

organization propelled by his vision, has empowered millions of poor people across the country by providing them with access to credit facilities.

For this feat, he has received numerous local and international accolades for his passion to emancipate the poor. He has been a participant in the microfinance space in Nigeria since its inception, and played an active role in forming the Nigerian Microfinance Policy, Regulatory and Supervisory Guidelines. He founded LAPO (Lift Above Poverty Organization) in the late 1980s, in a bid to address the limitations to access and to enable improved economic outcomes. The organization has successful operations in Nigeria and Sierra-Leone. He recognised the unleavened potential of MSMEs, and the significant role they play in poverty alleviation and to the economy, as well as the huge financing gap the sector faces. The organization has since evolved into a vast collection of mutually reinforcing institutions with interest in Microfinance (LAPO MFB), micro-leasing, Healthcare (Benin Medical Care), Micro-insurance (LAP HMO) and education with 9,446 employees in Nigeria.

Early life and career
Godwin Ehigiamusoe is an accomplished social entrepreneur and a foremost microfinance practitioner who has applied the concept of social enterprise to successfully build a number of enterprises which address the needs of persons and businesses at the bottom end of the society.

Godwin Ehigiamusoe earned his first and second degrees in Sociology and Sociology of Development at the University of Benin. He also holds a doctorate degree in Policy and Development Studies with distinction in his dissertation on Policy Instruments and Financial Inclusion.

He has attended several capacity enhancement and development programmes at the Harvard Kennedy School (2005); Lagos Business School (2010); IESE Business School, Barcelona (2010) and ISEAD Business school, Singapore Campus (2010).

In 2006, he led LAPO to win the prestigious Grameen Foundation Award for Excellence in Microfinance. He won the Model Entrepreneur Award Nigeria of the FATE Foundation in 2008 and Professor Schwab Foundation’s Outstanding Social Entrepreneur for Africa 2010 Award. In 2014, Godwin Ehigiamusoe won, along with former Governor Peter Obi, the Lagos Business School’s Distinguished Alumni Award. In 2012, the Rotary club of Benin city honoured him for his outstanding contributions to human development while the University of Benin conferred on him Doctor of Science Degree (Honoris Causa ) in 2016.

He has authored, Understanding NGOs (1998), Poverty and Microfinance in Nigeria (2000), Issues in Microfinance: Enhancing Financial Inclusion (2011) and It Can Be Done (The Mind Behind LAPO).

Philanthropy and personal life
In November, 2019, the Benin Medical Care was founded and commissioned for use to aid healthcare delivery services in Benin City.