By Peter OBIORA and Kingsley OGUNWA InvestAdvocate
Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE) – The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF) on Wednesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to support the Lagos State Employability Support Project between May 2017 and April 2019 to provide jobs for 10,000 youths.
Mandisa Mashologu, UNDP deputy country director in Nigeria who represented Edward Kallon, UNDP resident representative in Nigeria said for the very fact the development arm of the United Nations got into partnership with LSETF, it’s a testimony of UNDP’s believe that both organisations can make a meaningful impact in Lagos State in the area of employment creation.
She disclosed that the amount of resources to be put into the current partnership with LSETF is $4 million of which is expected to be channeled towards the generation of 10,000 employment opportunities for youths in Lagos State by April 2019.
“The current partnership for this particular program is $4 million. UNDP will be putting up $1 million and the fund will be putting up $3 million. So, we hope together, the resources would be able to not only impact as an end result employment opportunities for 10,000 youths in Lagos, but improving the capacity of vocational centres and ensuring that the curriculum meets the needs of the demands in terms of employability and making sure that the youths can go with the proper skills to undertake the work that is expected.” Mashologu said.
According to the UNDP deputy country director, the UNDP/LSETF partnership on Employability Support will serve as a model to demonstrate how unemployment can be reduced by addressing key labour supply shortcomings through committed partnership between the public/private sectors and a development agency. “This is in line with the Governments Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) as well as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The project approach will benefit from UNDP’s global experience and expertise in youth employment programmes across the world,” she added.
On his part, Akintunde Oyebobe, executive secretary, LSETF said: “We are proud to have the UNDP as technical and financial partners to our employability programme which we have designed for the benefit of thousands of unemployed youths in Lagos State. It signals confidence in our programmes and our ability to execute them transparently.
Oyebode noted with this support from UNDP, LSETF have received the needed boost in the actualisation of the Fund’s Employability Programme, which will address the twin issues of capacity building for Lagos State youths as well as the provision of employment opportunities for them.
“Indeed, the LSETF’s Employability Programme seeks to change the current challenge of ‘non-availability of employable (skilled) workers to meet the Lagos state public/private sector demand. Through this partnership, UNDP and LSETF will expand employment opportunities for youths by upgrading the quality of teaching skills and the curriculum of technical colleges and vocational centers in line with the local demand needs: Provide training in relevant sectors for which skilled and employable youths meet local labour demand and ensure job matching and skilled promotion for trained beneficiaries,” he added.
The executive secretary of LSETF noted the project will improve the quality of vocational training programmes for the manufacturing, health care, construction, entertainment, tourism and hospitality sectors, upgrade training content to make the labour force technically more competent, strengthen vocational instructor training and improve the capabilities of the participating technical colleges and vocational training centers (VTCs) to plan and manage the training programmes.
He disclosed that out of the N3 billion approved to support over 3,000 entrepreneurs in the State, about N1.6 billion which is about 50 percent of the fund have be disbursed.
“As at today, actually disbursement is roughly N1.6 billion which is about 50 percent of what we have approved. We expect to have disbursed about 80 to 90 percent by the end of June as long as the beneficiaries also help us by providing the necessary requirements. Some of which include tax registration for the SMEs, incorporation of businesses and proper guarantors. We have disbursed like I said earlier; about N1.6 billion which in my opinion is a clear sign that we are ready to support willing and able Entrepreneurs and as we speak, we have a pipeline where we expect to approve an additional 1,000 to 1,200 loans by the middle of next month. And our objective by the end of 2017 is to have supported over 23,000, micro small and medium enterprises and I think that we are well on track to meet that objective.
