Nigeria-UNDP partnership under Nigeria Jubilee Fellowship Programme
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Some 20,000 young graduates will begin paid fellowship in January 2022 through a partnership between Nigerian and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to help reduce the 33 per cent youth unemployment rate.
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo disclosed this at the 2021 Presidential Policy Dialogue of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI).
The partnership is under the Nigeria Jubilee Fellows Programme aimed at creating employment for 20,000 young graduates annually with year-long job placements in both the public and private sectors across the country.
Osinbajo’s spokesman Laolu Akande quoted him as saying that government interventions seeks to close the youth unemployment gap through job initiatives, per The PUNCH.
“These include the N-Power scheme (where up to 1.5 million young Nigerians were recruited over two cohorts), and the Jubilee Fellows Programme – in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme, the European Union, and other partners – a one-year work placement scheme for 20,000 young Nigerians set to kick-off in January 2022,” the statement said.
“While this was a scratch on the surface as well over two million young people enter into the workforce every year, there is no doubt that the Nigeria private sector has to thrive in order to create the number and kinds of jobs that we need but it is also important for the Nigerian youth to acquire the skills and knowledge of the workplace.”
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Government, private sector collaboration
Osinbajo stressed that the collaboration between the government and the private sector “must promote productivity and value addition and move away from the despair of managing limited resources to producing and creating more in a competitive and sustainable manner.”
He said through the new National Development Plan, Abuja is placing particular focus on job creation, value addition, and promoting a business-friendly environment.
The Plan “envisages an investment commitment of N348 trillion over the plan period of which it is expected that government at all levels will come up with about N49.7 trillion or about 14 per cent, while the private sector is expected to invest N298 trillion or about 86 per cent.”
