The federal government and the African Development
Bank (AfDB) have inaugurated a task team on youth employment and skills
development.
The team is a think-tank saddled with the responsibility to
convene a private sector round-table engagement as an exchange platform
designed for the identification and financing of eight priority projects for
accelerated youth employment and skills development.
Speaking at the inauguration in Abuja on Tuesday, the Minister
of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, who was represented by the Minister
of State, Prof. Stephen Ocheni, said Nigeria has a population of about 200
million people, noting that the opportunities offered by the large population
are not being harnessed through gainful engagement of the productive age of
between 15 and 54 years.
According to the minister, "Although the Nigerian youths
have been described as enterprising and hardworking, a recent record of 18.8
percent unemployment rate reported for the country by NBS shows that there is a
disconnect in the capacity to translate these attributes to gainful employment
opportunities and thriving enterprises for wealth creation and sustainable
development.
"The federal government, in continued effort to
respond to the unacceptable situation and reverse the trend, has therefore
entered into partnership with the African development bank group to engage a
broad spectrum of stakeholders in a round-table discussion on youth employment
and skills development.
"The programme is planned to have a rich
private sector participation due to the widely acknowledged higher potential
for job creation by this sector," he said.
The minister revealed that work on the design and
planning for the programme had since commenced, adding that the composition of
the task team includes himself (Ngige) as the chairperson, a representative
from the office of the vice president and a private sector representatives as
co-chair.
Others are members of federal Ministry of Finance,
Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, Ministry of Budget and
National Planning as well as the Ministry of Youth and Sports Development.
Also involved are the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural
Development, Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development, Nigerian
National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC),
Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC),
Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF),
Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), World Bank, Nigeria Economic Summit Group
(NESG), Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Nigeria Employers
Consultative Association (NECA),
Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), GiZ and the International
Labour Organisation (ILO).
Ngige urged all hands to be on deck in solving the problem of
unemployment which he said has far-reaching implications on the country's
socio-economic well-being which affects every sector of the economy.
In his remarks, a Senior Director of AfDB, Dr. Greg Osubor,
represented by the Regional Procurement Coordinator, AfDB, Abdulahi Baba Imoru,
said Nigeria makes up about a quarter of the entire population of Africa,
adding that the challenges of the Nigerian youths, if well addressed, could contribute immensely
to solving the job problem of Africa.
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