File photo: Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dele Alake.

The Solid Minerals Development Fund has announced two live information sessions for prospective applicants seeking grant funding under its EMERGE initiative, as the Federal Government steps up efforts to attract investment and support early-stage projects in Nigeria’s mining sector.

The sessions will provide interested applicants with guidance on the funding opportunities, eligibility requirements and application process under the programme. The SMDF, an agency of the Ministry of Solid Minerals Development, disclosed this in a notice issued on Wednesday.

According to the Fund, the interactive sessions will be hosted by the EMERGE team and will allow prospective applicants to ask questions and obtain clarification before submitting their applications.

The first session, which will focus on Exploration and Critical Minerals, is scheduled to be held on Thursday, August 20, 2026, from 12 pm to 1 pm. A second session, dedicated to Research and Development, will take place on Friday, August 21, from 11 am to 12 pm.

The Fund said the sessions were designed to help prospective applicants better understand the opportunities available under the initiative and improve their understanding of the requirements for accessing the grants.

“The sessions are designed to provide applicants with detailed guidance on eligibility requirements, available funding streams and the application process,” the notice stated.

It added that the sessions would create an opportunity for direct engagement between prospective applicants and the team implementing the programme.

“According to the Fund, the interactive sessions will be hosted by the EMERGE team, giving prospective applicants an opportunity to ask questions and receive clarification before submitting their applications.”

The SMDF urged individuals, researchers, innovators and other eligible stakeholders interested in developing projects in the solid minerals sector to participate in the sessions.

Applications for the grant funding remain open, with interested applicants directed to the EMERGE application platform for further information and submission of applications.

The EMERGE programme is one of the initiatives through which the Federal Government is seeking to address one of the major challenges confronting Nigeria’s mining industry: the difficulty of moving promising mineral projects beyond the early stages of exploration.

Although Nigeria has significant deposits of several commercially valuable minerals, many exploration projects struggle to attract the capital, technical expertise and geological data required to advance towards commercial production.

EMERGE was created to help bridge that gap by providing catalytic grants, technical support and research funding to promising projects.

The programme is designed to support early-stage exploration, critical minerals development and processing, as well as geoscience research, with the broader objective of building a pipeline of projects that can attract private investment.

The initiative is particularly significant as the Federal Government intensifies efforts to position the solid minerals sector as a major source of economic growth, job creation and export revenue, while reducing Nigeria’s dependence on crude oil.

By supporting projects at the high-risk early exploration and research stages, the Fund hopes to help developers generate the technical data and capacity required to make their projects commercially viable and attractive to investors.

The SMDF said EMERGE was created to “unlock Nigeria’s mineral potential by helping promising projects move past the early exploration stage, where most stall for want of capital, reliable data, and technical capacity.”

It added that the programme would provide “catalytic grants, technical support, and research funding to advance early-stage exploration, critical-minerals development and processing, and geoscience research, building a pipeline of investment-ready, bankable projects.”

The live sessions are therefore expected to serve as an important first step for prospective beneficiaries seeking to understand how their projects can qualify for support under the EMERGE initiative.