The World Bank on Monday, July 15, said it would be investing $10 million in skills development to tackle youth unemployment in the country.

The Bank’s education specialist, Mistura Rufai, revealed this during the opening of a two-day Innovation Grant Facilities (IGF) Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)/Contract Signing and Implementation Workshop in Abuja on Monday.

According to the Bank, the workshop was organised by the Innovation Development and Effectiveness in the Acquisition of Skills (IDEAS) Project of the Federal Ministry of Education.

She stated that Nigeria needed youths to be empowered and trained in building its economic fortunes, adding that the current scheme had about 78 grantees to empower over 50,000 youths across the country.

Rufai 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, IDEAS, Blessing Ogwu, said the programme was created to give every Nigerian child the opportunity to learn and acquire skills.

She said that with the increasing number of out-of-school children in the country, there was a need to remove them from the street.

The national coordinator urged the grantees to be committed to the initiative to reduce the number of unemployed youths in the country.

She said: “The essence of this project is focusing on the skill acquisition to reduce unemployment in Nigeria. We don’t need anyone to tell us that we have so many youths who are unemployed.

“Most of our youths are unemployed and the only way is for the youth to acquire our skills.”

The IGF Consultant, Prof. Ndem Ayara, explained that the project, scheduled to be implemented within one year, was 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 percent, and the private sector partner will provide 20 percent.

“Of the 20 percent by the private sector, they will contribute 10 percent in kind and the other 10 percent in cash.

“It is the cash component of the private sector contribution that is expected to be the counterpart funding by the private sector.”
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