KENNETH WALKER, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: Stella Lukway Francis runs a family business in the Southern Nigerian city of Benin. Stella and her six children begin each day preparing containers and stoppers for customers of their kerosene business. One by one, throughout the day, Stella`s neighbors come to buy the kerosene, which is used to fuel their lamps and cooking stoves. It`s a very modest living, but Stella couldn`t be happier to have it or prouder to do it. Six years ago, Stella and her family were on the brink of starvation.

STELLA LUKWAY FRANCIS, ENTREPRENEUR: I was so poor. I did nothing. I did nothing. I was struggling to feed my family. I don`t have money to buy clothes.

WALKER: A friend told Stella about a micro credit organization called LAPO, for Lift Above Poverty organisation. She attended a meeting and was assigned to one of the groups, LAPO requires clients to join for peer support. After some counseling and basic market research, Stella decided she wanted to open a kerosene business from her home. Stella is doing so well, she`s earned the money to put her eldest son in university and pay the school fees for her other five children.

FRANCIS: I thank God for everything (INAUDIBLE), because they turned my life around (INAUDIBLE). I can feed my family. So I will always pray for them, that god should continue to guide them. I will be a member of LAPO until I will die.

WALKER: Stories like Stella`s have become almost routine for Amen Akenbor, Clients Relations Manager for LAPO. She oversees some 32,000 micro credit clients in Nigeria. Like most micro credit clients worldwide, the vast majority of LAPOs members are women and virtually all of them have transformational stories like Stella`s. What micro credit organizations do is take the poorest of women and give them the means and the hope to set up their own businesses, like many of the women you see here in this marketplace. In African terms, that gives them a middle class lifestyle. They can afford to buy food for their children, pay their school fees, and buy for some level of health care.

GODWIN EHIGIAMUSOE, CEO, LAPO: Our repayment rate is between 97- 100 percent.

WALKER: Godwin Ehigiamusoe estimates that more than a million Nigerians are in some micro credit program. And that, he says, doesn`t begin to approach the need.

EHIGIAMUSOE: If we are going to make a meaningful impact on poverty in Nigeria, we need to reach a higher number of people.

WALKER: Ehigiamusoe thinks he sees a way. He is lobbying the government to create a national fund for micro credit finance. The way he sees it, if the government and private sector are serious about developing the economy, there`s no way they can get around micro credit finance.

EHIGIAMUSOE: If we are able to provide capital on an affordable condition-- because that is important-- to a very large number of people, and this large number of people are able to use that resources to increase their productivity, their capacity, their income capacity, that means that first of all, the income of the household, of a large number of households, will be enhanced.

WALKER: He`s also finding more interest among newly restructured Nigerian banks.

EHIGIAMUSOE: Do not be afraid. Your money will come back. Do not also be so concerned. This business is very profitable.

WALKER: If the lure of profits is not enough, a growing number of governments in the developing world like Nigeria are beginning to require that banks provide some funding for micro-enterprises and small to medium businesses. It`s part of their effort to get the whole country behind plans to develop the entire society. I`m Kenneth Walker, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, in Benin City, Nigeria.