A NEW scheme seeking to guarantee thousands of jobs for youths within the age bracket of 18 and 35 has been created by the Federal Government, Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has said.
Disclosing this at the at the 2011Annual Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank in Washington DC, United States of America, yesterday, Okonjo-Iweala said the new initiative was a "concrete demonstration" of the Administration's commitment to the transformation agenda of job creation.
This comes as the World Bank agreed to partner the Federal Government in its efforts to create more jobs in the economy. The promise is the outcome of a meeting between the Finance Minister and World Bank President, Mr. Robert Zoellick.
Under the partnership, the World Bank has agreed to work with Nigeria to leverage the N50 billion Fund by helping to provide a very innovative and interesting competition for youths all over the country.
Also, the World Bank has agreed to assist the country in Agriculture and manufacturing, which are priority areas for the Federal Government's job-creation schemes.
Another outcome of the meeting was the resolve of the bank to help attract businesses in China to relocate their manufacturing concerns to Nigeria, with a view to creating more jobs.
Already, President Goodluck Jonathan has approved the take off of the new youth job scheme, called: Youth Enterprise with Innovation in Nigeria [YOUWIN], which is a practical and creative way of inspiring the youths in Nigeria to create new jobs, according to the Minister.
The Finance Minister gave an insight into the new job creation scheme: " The programme is called YOUWIN, an acronym for 'Youth Enterprise With Innovation In Nigeria.' It is a multi-facetted national business and innovation competition for youths aged 18 to 35 with the core objective of encouraging aspiring youth in Nigeria to develop business ideas and engage in entrepreneurship that will lead to job creation.
"The Competition is intended to provide hardworking and innovative youths with a platform to showcase their business skills, business talent and aspirations to leading business organisations in Nigeria.
" Federal Ministries of Finance, Youth Development and ICT are collaborating to realise this important historic project. Specifically, the scheme is intended to attract ideas/innovations from young aspirants from University, technical and secondary schools; provide business training to a wide segment of the population; encourage spin-offs and specialisation; cover risk associated with start-ups; enable young entrepreneurs have access to a professional network and improve their visibility; and create jobs.''
She said a panel of reputable judges from the national and international business community will be set up to judge the submitted ideas/innovations and award prizes and recognition based on the merits of each idea/innovation, the project rate of return, sales growth, and employment forecast, among others.
According to the Minister, the competition will be launched in six zones in Nigeria to enable youths in all states participate. She said it would be launched as a cycle of three competitions over a three-year period.
The Guardian