The World Bank will be investing $10 million on skills development to tackle youth unemployment in Nigeria, it was learnt yesterday.
The bank’s Education Specialist, Dr Mistura Rufai, stated this at the opening of a two-day Innovation Grant Facilities (IGF) Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)/Contract Signing and Implementation Workshop in Abuja.
According to her, the workshop was organised by the Innovation Development and Effectiveness in the Acquisition of Skills (IDEAS) Project of the Federal Ministry of Education.
Dr Rufai noted that Nigerian youths need to be empowered and trained in building its economic fortunes, adding that the current scheme has about 78 grantees to empower over 50,000 youths across the country.
She said: “This facility was designed to support complementing agencies that are promoting innovations in the training of digital skills.
“It aims at supporting critical intervention projects in the skills development ecosystem such that we develop digital skills across the country. The training is expected to have beginners, intermediate to advanced level. As we speak at the national level, we have about 10,000 youths currently being trained.
“We also have about 78 grantees and we hope that in about a year, we will have over 50,000 grantees being trained.”
The National Project Coordinator of IDEAS, Blessing Ogwu, said the programme was created to give every Nigerian child the opportunity to learn and acquire skills.
According to her, there was a need to stop the growing number of out-of-school children and also remove the present ones. She urged the grantees to be committed to the initiative to reduce the number of unemployed youths in the country.
“This project focuses on skill acquisition to reduce unemployment in Nigeria. We don’t need anyone to tell us that we have so many youth who are unemployed, and the only way is for them to acquire skills,” she noted.
The IGF Consultant, Prof. Ndem Ayara, explained that the project, scheduled to be implemented within one year, is a Public/Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement.
Ayara said: “In the partnership, the public sector will support the consortium to implement the project up to 80 per cent, while the private sector partner will provide 20 per cent. Of the 20 per cent by the private sector, they will contribute 10 per cent in kind and the other 10 per cent in cash.
“It is the cash component that is expected to be the counterpart funding provided by the private sector.”
