Review of the “Presidential Youth Empowerment Scheme (P-Yes)” and Employment Generation in Nigeria: Problems and Prospects ()
1. Introduction
In 2015, Nigeria’s population was projected at 183 million people, of which 90,989,254 are females and 92,387,474 are males (NBS, 2015) [1] . By 2017, Nigeria’s population was estimated at 199 million. Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa. Approximately 42% of her population is under the age of 15, and another 29% is between the ages of 15 and 29 as of 2017 due to rapid population growth (around 3 per cent per year). Nigeria’s population is expected to grow by some 200 million people by 2050, Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development, (2021) [2] . When compared to other African nations, the share of youth Not in Education, Employment, or Training (NEET) stood at 26.2 per cent in 2019 (ILO Youth Country Brief (Nigeria), 2023) [3] . Young people who spend much time not in employment, education, or training tend to experience varying degrees of social and economic marginalisation and are more likely to be left behind.
The Nigerian Youth Employment Action Plan 2021-2024 report [2] identifies youth as an important factor in economic growth and national development. According to the report, the country’s ageing population is one of the “Development Constraints” in the agricultural sector, which accounts for 24% of Nigeria’s GDP. In other words, to sustain economic growth through the agriculture sector, youth must be involved.
In line with the National Youth Policy (NYP) in Nigeria, the term “youth” refers to people between the ages of 15 and 29. However, the World Health Organization has a different age bracket for young people. Any member of society who is 15 to 34 years old is considered a youth in the eyes of the organisation. Note that Nigeria belongs to the organisations mentioned above and can therefore describe her youth within the age bracket of those organisations. The World Health Organization (2020) [4] defines youth as anyone 15 to 34 years old. The World Health Organization’s age bracket for youth is adopted for this study to reflect the distinctiveness of Nigerian society.
Page & Czuba (1999) (as cited in Shishima) opined that “Young people’s empowerment is a complex social process that aids individuals in determining their destinies. It is a method that fosters people’s power (the ability to implement) to be used in their homes, neighbourhoods, and societies by taking action on issues that they believe are significant” [5] .
The lack of effective youth employment opportunities in Nigeria has the potential to cause social disruption and dislocation. The prevalent issue of severe unemployment among the country’s educated youth is a matter of great concern, stemming from various economic challenges, including high inflation and mismanagement of resources.
National Youth Survey (2020) [6] in its report, breaks the unemployment rate down according to the six geopolitical zone in Nigeria. Accordingly, “26.3 percent of youth in North West could not secure job followed by South West (23.4 percent) while North-East and South-South (14.2 percent) and (14 percent) respectively could not secure job. In the same vein, Youths in South East (12.5 percent) and North Central (9.5 percent) were unemployed.” In Nigeria, about 53.40% of youths are unemployed according to youth unemployment rates released by the National Bureau of Statistics in 2022.
However, the World Health Organization has a different age bracket for a youth. The organization sees a youth as any member of the society that falls between the ages of 15 and 34 years. Note that, Nigeria belongs to the above-mentioned organizations and can therefore describe her youths within the age bracket of those organizations. Youth for the purpose of this study and the peculiarity of Nigeria society falls between 15 and 50 years.
The high levels of unemployment and underemployment among Nigerian youth impede their involvement in the country’s economic and social development. Nigeria has a population of approximately 190 million. About 70 to 80 per cent of this population comprises youth, and more than 80 per cent are unemployed (Onibon, 2022) [7] . Due to the precarious situation, the government directed the National Manpower Board to survey unemployed youths in 1986. The discovery that 10% of the youth population, or over two million youths, are unemployed is alarming. From 1986 to 2015, despite government interventions, Nigeria's unemployment rate remained high. It steadily increased from 8.5% in 1985 to 23.9% in 2011. The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported that in 2012, 54% of Nigerian youths between the ages of 15 and 35 were unemployed. (Ajala & Jawondo, 2023) [8] .
The worrisome development of the above data is that “it translates to a bulging, youthful, energetic unemployed population with no contribution to the economic growth of the country”. In 2023, over 1.6 million young people sat for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), conducted in various centres across Nigeria and her foreign missions. The National Youth Service Corps 2020 claimed that 66,000 Nigerian graduates were mobilised for mandatory one-year service to the country (Daily Trust Newspaper, 2020) [9] .
Therefore, it is vital to note that the workforce is increasing without corresponding job opportunities. The International Labour Organization (ILO) (2022) [10] linked the rate of unemployed youths in Nigeria to the phenomenon of jobless growth, an increased number of school graduates with no matching job opportunities, a moratorium on employment in many public and private sector institutions, and continued job losses in the manufacturing and oil sectors. The ILO further stated that the recent economic growth in Nigeria has not led to a rapid decrease in poverty or the creation of enough decent jobs for the young and rapidly expanding labour force.
However, the Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development’s report, Nigerian Youth Employment Action Plan 2021-24, published in August 2021, confirms that unemployment rates are rising. “As of 2020 (Q2), youth unemployment (15 - 34 years old) stood at 35%,” the report states. A further 28% of young people in the labour force were considered underemployed (working 20 - 39 hours a week), and 37% were working full time (40 or more hours per week)” (Nigerian Youth Employment Action Plan, 2021) [11] .
Since the return of Nigeria to civilian rule in 1999 after sixteen years of military dictatorship, numerous initiatives, policies, and programs have been implemented by the government at all levels, particularly the Federal government, to empower the teeming Nigerian youth. These include the National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP), the Subsidy Readjustment and Investment Programme (SURE-P), You-Win, and the National Social Investment Program.
On his assumption of office in 2015, former President Muhammadu Buhari promised to create jobs through youth empowerment initiatives. The former president implemented the Presidential Youth Empowerment Scheme (P-YES) to fulfil his promise. Before his election in 2015, the youth unemployment rate had become a major threat to Nigeria’s social and economic development. Many young Nigerians are unemployed despite having a degree or its equivalent. The number of unemployed graduates is higher than ever, and many have entered the dreaded professions of robbery, kidnapping, and money rituals. Indeed, the trend was so concerning that the World Bank conducted a population and unemployment rate analysis in 2020 and concluded that Nigeria’s population at the time stood at 206,139,587, with roughly 60% of the population being young, energetic working-age people capable of growing the country’s economy.
Employment generation has been the concern of governments all over the world. Successive Nigerian governments have established one form or another of employment generation programs, all to fight unemployment and poverty in Nigeria.
The increasing incidence of unemployment despite various resources and schemes for employment generation-related programmes in Nigeria suggests that the programmes and schemes could have been more effective. In light of the present government’s deep concern for the widespread unemployment rate in Nigeria, this study was conceived to investigate the prospects and challenges of the Presidential Youth Empowerment Scheme (P-YES) and employment generation in Nigeria.
The broad objective of the study is to review the Presidential Youth Empowerment Scheme (P-YES) and employment generation in Nigeria. In particular, the study will evaluate the extent of the Presidential Youth Empowerment Scheme (P-YES) implementation in Nigeria, assess the P-YES program’s effects on job creation, and pinpoint obstacles to the scheme’s implementation in Nigeria.
2. Conceptual Review
2.1. Presidential Youth Empowerment Scheme (P-YES)
President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration created the ‘Presidential Youth Empowerment Scheme (P-YES)’ as a youth empowerment initiative to help millions of young people in Nigeria who are unemployed today. Nigeria. In collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Finance, the Federal Ministry of Labour and Productivity, and the ‘Public Private Partnership (PPP)’ initiative, the Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Youth and Students Affairs (OSAPYSA) supervised the scheme. On October 12, 2020, President Muhammadu Buhari launched the Presidential Youth Empowerment Scheme in Abuja to create at least 774,000 empowerment opportunities through direct youth empowerment, which is one thousand (1,000) youth per local government across the six geopolitical zones. The sole aim of this program is to eradicate unemployment among Nigeria’s teeming youth.
As a result of Nigeria’s high youth unemployment rate, especially among school leavers, the federal government and its partners introduced this program. The federal government developed this empowerment program to address the growing youth unemployment issue and lower the rates at which unemployment is growing among the teeming youth.
Therefore, the goals and objectives of the Presidential Youth Empowerment Scheme (PYES) programme are;
i. to reduce unemployment currently ravaging the country.
ii. to impact skills in youth by empowering a minimum of one person in your locality.
iii. to promote wealth and financial inclusion among young people in Nigeria.
However, the Presidential Youth Empowerment Scheme differs from other government empowerment initiatives like the National Social Investment Programme (N-SIP) in that participation is not contingent on educational attainment. The populations that are literate, semiliterate, and illiterate are all beneficiaries.
2.2. Social Safety Net
Social scientists have provided numerous definitions for the social safety net. In both developed and developing countries, the social security system is seen from three different angles: as a way to protect human rights, as a risk management tool, and as a way to provide for basic needs (Munro, 2007) [11] . Therefore, the social safety net drives social investment to enhance people’s capacity to participate in social and economic life. The initiative aims to help those most at risk and disadvantaged by implementing policies and initiatives that can lessen their suffering.
“Social safety net” programs have recently become a veritable instrument in the African development agenda, which Nigeria has embraced. Traditionally and structurally, unemployment (formal or informal), underemployment, informal employment, and poverty in all its ramifications have been persistently high in Nigeria. Therefore, inequalities have been created, morbidity and mortality rates have been inflated, and productivity has been low, posing a barrier to sustainable development. An integrated social protection system will address the causes and manifestations of these challenges (Draft National Social Protection Policy (NSPP), 2016) [12] .
However, many African states have recently invested heavily in social security net programmes to combat the high surge of poverty, unemployment, and inequality. For instance, in the 2022 Appropriation Act, the federal government budgeted N130.5 billion for special interventions. A breakdown of the figures showed that the Ministry would spend N60,917,949 billion on special interventions/capital contingencies; at the same time, it is proposing to spend 10 billion naira on special intervention programmes/projects. Apart from that, the Ministry will also spend N100 billion on National Poverty Reduction with a growth strategy (FGN Commitment, including National Social Investment Programme (N-SIP) (Leadership Newspaper, 2021) [13] .
In a similar vein, the government of Ghana launched the Poverty Reduction Project (PRP), a significant social investment. The program’s overarching objective is to lessen poverty in Ghana’s rural and urban areas. The project’s primary funding source included a significant portion of the social investment fund (SIF), which went into effect in 1998. This fund made accessing basic social and economic infrastructure easier for people experiencing poverty. Additionally, it improved less privileged access to financial services and strengthened local governments, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and community-based organisations (CBOs) to reduce poverty overall. In a succinct evaluation of the SIF, Woodling (2016) [14] praised PCR for helping many Ghanaians escape poverty and succeed in its primary mandate areas.
The social security net is geared toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in many Asian tiger nations, including Taiwan, North Korea, Singapore, Japan, China, South Korea, Philippines, and India. Given that SDGs are a comprehensive and legally-based set of global goals and targets that collectively shape a sustainable, equitable, and resilient future for nations, regardless of where they are in the development process (https://www.sdgfunders.org), as cited in (Onah & Olise, 2019) [15] , it is obvious that incorporating SDGs helps to maximise impacts where they are most needed. For example, if an organisation is focused on making clean water accessible, “weaving” in SDG ensures the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.
2.3. Unemployment in Nigeria
A universal definition of unemployment does not exist anywhere because of its effects on human endeavour. While some academics define unemployment in terms of culture, others favour political, economic, or statistical definitions. The socio-culturalists define unemployment as a socio-economic condition where a non-disabled person is unemployed. The forced idleness of wage earners who are willing and able to work but cannot find a job is real. In societies where most people cannot make a living, finding a job can be difficult and time-consuming because most people make a living by working for others.
“Unemployment is expected to continue to be a major challenge in 2023 due to the limited investment by the private sector, low industrialisation and slower than required economic growth and consequently the inability of the economy to absorb the 4 - 5 million new entrants into the Nigerian job market every year. Although the National Bureau of Statistics recorded an increase in the national unemployment rate from 23.1 per cent in 2018 to 33.3 per cent in 2020, we estimate that this rate has increased to 37.7 per cent in 2022 and will rise further to 40.6 per cent in 2023.” Punch, 2023. [16] .
Any responsible government, whether in a developed, developing, or underdeveloped country, should be concerned about the high unemployment rate in Nigeria. Addressing this issue and implementing policies aimed at lowering the unemployment rate has been prioritised by the government as a top macroeconomic priority.
The Nigerian government and international agencies recognise the importance of creating employment opportunities that enhance economic growth, alleviate poverty, and improve the quality of life for its citizens. Various policies and strategies have been implemented to this effect.
By promoting entrepreneurship and small businesses, developing infrastructure, and implementing public works programs, the government aims to increase employment opportunities. These measures aim to stimulate economic activity and generate employment opportunities.
Enhancing the education and skills of the workforce is crucial to addressing unemployment. The government and international agencies invest in education and vocational training programs to equip individuals with the necessary skills for available job opportunities.
The most recent statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) show that the unemployment rate is 40 per cent on the broad definition, its highest level over a decade (Guardian, 2023) [17] . More concerning is the level of unemployment for those aged between 18 and 50, which is now at 33.3% (This day, 2023) [18] . An urgent, creative, and well-coordinated response is required to the national crisis of youth unemployment.
The Presidential Youth Employment Scheme (P-YES) directly addresses the issue of numerous youths failing to transition from education to employment. Of the 300,000 young people entering the labour market each year, more than 65% remain outside of employment after education and training (Businessday Newspaper, 2022) [19] . Those young people who manage to access opportunities tend to zigzag on often broken pathways, falling in and out of education and short-term work so they cannot realise their potential and get a foothold in the economy. Many capable and willing young Nigerians who had previously given up looking for work have started looking again this year. The program has raised the hope of the youth as they become more active in the labour market. Given the high rate of youth unemployment, decisive action is needed immediately to give unemployed youths meaningful opportunities to advance. Young people are key to transforming our economy, boosting growth, and fostering creativity and innovation. They are essential to increasing productivity and improving the livelihoods of all Nigerians.
Therefore, governments launched several programs to combat the threat of unemployment. These include the inaugural, second, third, and fourth national development plans (1962-1985), the three-year rolling plans (1990-1992), Vision 2010 (1996-1998), the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS) 2003-2007, the National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP) (2001-2015), the Subsidy Readjustment Investment Program (SURE-P) (2012-2015), You-Win and a host of other. Despite the sizable budgetary commitment to these programs, Nigeria has little to show for them. Ironically, the rate of joblessness has steadily risen. The causes of unemployment have been the subject of numerous studies (Olowa, 2012 [20] ; Ucha, 2010 [21] ; Taiwo and Agwu, 2016 [22] ). Previous studies reveal that poverty, low economic growth, social development, lack of skill, underutilisation of resources, a mono-economy, inadequate investment, and poor governance are the major causes of unemployment in Nigeria.
Between 2010 and 2021, Nigeria’s population grew by 2.4 per cent per year on average, which is higher than the acceptable growth rate for developing countries (World Bank, 2022) [6] . Because these sectors are critical to reducing unemployment, the public has expressed concern about the social sector’s poor performance, particularly in education. In the past, capital expenditures have made up less than 30% of the budget mix, historically skewed toward recurrent spending (Onah & Olise, 2019) [15] . As a result, there needs to be more industrialisation and infrastructure development, which can create a favourable environment for businesses. In the 21st century, the private sector remains a major creator of jobs and a driver of a robust economy.
Furthermore, governments have recently decided to diversify the Nigerian economy by implementing policies to revitalise the agricultural sector and the country’s solid mineral resources (Onah & Olise 2019) [15] . Nigeria’s economy remains a mono-economy that is heavily reliant on imports. According to the country’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the oil and gas sector accounted for more than 90% of Nigeria’s export earnings and roughly 70% of government revenue in 2017 (Shell Nigeria). Major unemployment challenges for Nigeria include widespread out-of-school children and socio-cultural and religious beliefs in some regions. Lack of training and access to fundamental skills have made unemployment even worse.
2.4. Presidential Youth Empowerment Scheme (P-YES) and Employment Generation
Therefore, the Presidency established the Presidential Youth Empowerment Scheme to coordinate and drive a comprehensive plan to create 774,000 jobs for youths nationwide, with 1,000 such job opportunities per local government. To ensure that every young person in Nigeria has somewhere to go, we hope to create a broad spectrum of possibilities for young people through skill development, employment, work experience, entrepreneurship, and mentorship training.
Considering the severity and persistence of youth unemployment, small projects and isolated initiatives will have little impact. For the approach to be successful, it must support and emphasise what is already working in the system, promote innovation, and ignite systemic changes that will benefit millions of young people, not just a few hundred or thousand.
2.5. Prospects of P-YES on Employment Generation
Any plan to create employment in the nation deserves consideration, given that reports rank Nigeria on the list of nations with the highest population growth, particularly among young people, and a severe joblessness rate of 40.1%. P-YES goes beyond separating it from another waste of money or cynical attempts to increase the effectiveness of initiatives to create jobs for political purposes. Unlike similar schemes in the past, such as You-Win, SURE-P, NAPEP, and others, which targeted small to medium-sized enterprises, P-YES is for the vulnerable at the local government level, microbusiness operators, who are at the lowest rank in the economic ebb. They are segments of society whose capital worth is less than twenty thousand nairas (N20,000) or require an amount of less than twenty thousand nairas (N20,000). The beneficiaries are expected to receive a stipend to establish or expand their small business.
Financial inclusion constitutes an essential element in determining access to financing. In Nigeria, about 65% of the population needs access to formal financial institutions and, as such, is excluded from the financial system (Olorunsola, 2022) [23] . Ardic, Heimann & Nataliya (2011) [24] maintained that the explanations for the high level of financial exclusion cannot be unconnected with the educational system, gender, age, irregular income, regulations, and geographical locations. These factors have made the lack of access to financial services worse. The P-YES program is designed to address these obstacles head-on. It is intended to provide 774,000 jobs to the initial beneficiaries, allowing them to receive stipends without being constrained by the formal financial institution.
The program may also increase beneficiaries’ incomes. The beneficiaries are expected to utilise the extra money to buy new stocks to make more money. Remembering these stipends will help the recipients build new profitable businesses, encourage saving, and improve their capacity to foster a culture of dedication and independence. Therefore, sustained implementation of P-YES and social intervention programmes can obliterate this huge gap that has made Nigeria’s sustainable economic growth and development elusive.
However, OXFAM (2017) [25] argued that socio-economic problems like unemployment, poverty, and income inequality in Nigeria are not due to inadequate resources but to underutilised, unutilised, ill-used, misallocated, and misappropriated resources by the economic and political elites. It maintained and recommended that the government free millions of people from unemployment, poverty, and other socio-economic problems by building a new economic and political system that ensures access to national resources for all. The alarming income inequality gap between the rich and the poor in Nigeria can be partially closed by reallocating and redistributing resources, and P-YES is one such solution. Government programs and policies that provide social safety nets, like the P-YES, allow low-income families and unemployed people to access income and invest their time and money in worthwhile endeavours to enhance their family’s health and overall well-being.
2.6. Implementation Challenges of P-YES
Since the inauguration of the P-YES by the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, just like every other social safety net and social intervention program and policy, there have been growing worries about the potential and capacity for the programme to reduce unemployment, poverty, and inequality among teeming unemployed young Nigerians. The timing and viability of the programme worry Nigerian politicians, particularly the critics of President Buhari’s administration. Observers in the Nigerian political system claims that, like other intervention programmes, the scheme’s implementation is questionable and that its announcement was made to encourage vote-buying. It is crucial to remember that most government social intervention safety net programs and policies are constructed to serve political objectives. According to Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, the Executive Director of Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) and Head of Transparency International Nigeria, the Social Investment Programmes implemented by past administrations have failed due to inadequate design, planning, and implementation, as well as politicization, poor procurement, and a lack of due process. The programs have been plagued by scandals and have ultimately not achieved their intended goals. The 2019 general elections marred by violence and disruptions mainly perpetrated by the youth unemployment further exposed the weakness and inefficiency of the youth empowerment schemes such as P-YES and N-Power scheme. “There has been concern that the programme design was not consultative, participatory and sustainable to deal with poverty and create real economic empowerment for those Nigerians facing extreme poverty,” Rafsanjani said. (The Guardian, 13 June, 2019) [26] .
It is essential to remember that the timing of the accusations of vote buying makes it very challenging to distinguish between former President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration’s sincere desire to reduce unemployment and the scheme in question. The program is also designed for adults, young people without jobs, and people looking to start a small business with a very low initial investment of no more than N20,000.
Despite being properly evaluated, it became apparent that most of the intended recipients lived in rural areas. Ironically, this program was established and had its headquarters at the local government centre in an urban area. Most people earn well over twenty thousand naira (N20,000) per month. This also raised enough concerns regarding the target population for the program and the actual beneficiaries.
Furthermore, another prominent challenge is purchasing and allocating working tools, such as kiosks, umbrellas, wheelbarrows and other relevant working tools, to the beneficiaries to start their businesses. It was discovered that most genuine beneficiaries needed access to the working tools.
Another huge challenge of the scheme is the lack of data and weak institutions to ensure the program efficiently brings succour devoid of corruption, cronyism, fraud, and obscurity to the young unemployed Nigerians. P-YES aims to reduce unemployment and poverty, especially among young people. However, a profound examination of the scheme proves otherwise. For instance, the stipend amount is very small and cannot guarantee high satisfaction to the beneficiaries because of the unfavourable economic condition of the country. With a high dependency ratio of 88.2 per cent, there is a high propensity for the beneficiaries to spend a greater part of the income from the scheme on household consumption.
It becomes a herculean task to make a difference when there are 23 million unemployed Nigerians (Punch Newspaper, 2022) [27] . A broader net of beneficiaries is needed to reflect the enormity of the unemployment problem. Following the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) recommendation 2017-2020 (MBNP, 2017) [28] , the federal government should immediately up-scale the P-YES and other social safety net intervention programs and improve employability to close the skills gap.
3. Conclusion
The possibility of using P-YES to reduce unemployment and poverty sustainably has been analysed. Considering the present situation of youths in Nigeria, one can infer that there is no significant relationship between P-YES and employment generation. By this, we can conveniently conclude that the P-YES program has not reduced the youth’s unemployment level. The failure may need to be connected to the challenges enumerated above. These challenges include a lack of adequate infrastructure, an insufficiency of funds, a gap in communication, and the opaqueness that characterised the selection processes. With all these put together, the program must be considered comprehensive enough to address unemployment sustainably. The laid-down operational procedure is equally considered inadequate.
4. Recommendation
Youth unemployment is indeed a complex issue that requires comprehensive and systemic solutions. While minor projects and isolated initiatives can positively impact a small scale, addressing the depth and persistence of youth unemployment necessitates more substantial efforts. A meaningful difference can be made by focusing on the following principles, which we divide into specific and general categories:
4.1. Specific
Transparent selection process: Ensure that the selection process for beneficiaries of programs like P-YES (Presidential et al. Scheme) is transparent, merit-based, and free from political patronage. Implement a fair and equitable system that gives every eligible young person an equal chance to benefit from the scheme. This may assist in building trust among the youth and ensure that the opportunities are distributed fairly.
Partnerships for funding: Foster partnerships between the government, private sectors, well-meaning individuals, international donor agencies, and civil society organisations (CSOs) to secure social safety net programs like P-YES. Collaborative funding efforts can help alleviate the financial burden on the government and ensure the successful implementation of such programs.
Infrastructure development: Focus on providing adequate and quality infrastructure in selected states and throughout Nigeria. By improving infrastructure, including educational facilities, training centres, and technological resources, beneficiaries of youth empowerment schemes will have the necessary tools and resources to acquire skills and develop their potential in their respective states.
Sufficient funding allocation: Allocate and release sufficient funds for implementing youth empowerment programs. Adequate funding is crucial for effective program implementation, including training, mentorship, and support services for beneficiaries. Ensuring a consistent flow of funds will help sustain the programs and maximise their impact.
4.2. General
Supporting and scaling successful models: Identify and promote existing programs and initiatives that have successfully addressed youth unemployment. These models should be thoroughly evaluated and, if proven effective, scaled up to reach more young people. Providing support and resources to these initiatives can expand their impact, benefiting many youths.
Encouraging innovation: The era of doling out cash to the unemployed and vulnerable should be over in Nigeria by now. A concerted effort that fosters an environment that encourages innovation and experimentation to tackle youth unemployment must be made. Such an environment can involve supporting entrepreneurship, promoting partnerships between educational institutions and industries, and incentivising businesses to create job opportunities that benefit youthful people. Innovation leads to developing new approaches that can more effectively address the changing needs of the new job market.
Catalysing systemic changes: It is notorious that youth unemployment is a structural issue requiring systemic changes. Whenever a need arises to initiate a programme of this nature, there must be proper comprehensive engagement with policymakers, educational institutions, employers, and other stakeholders to drive policy reforms, educational curriculum enhancements, and labour market interventions that align with the needs of the evolving job market. Encouraging collaboration and dialogue among these stakeholders can help create an enabling environment for systemic changes.
Scalability and inclusivity: It wastes tangible and intangible resources to commence a program that aims to reach vulnerable youths but ends up with a few unidentified, fake, and unreachable beneficiaries. To avoid this, we should ensure that solutions are scalable and inclusive, aiming to benefit millions of young people rather than just a limited number. The solution can involve leveraging technology to reach remote areas, providing access to quality education and vocational training, promoting gender equity in employment, and addressing barriers that marginalise people with disability. Solutions should consider young people’s diverse needs and circumstances to ensure equitable access to opportunities.
Long-term perspective: Recognize that addressing youth unemployment is a long-term endeavour that requires sustained efforts over the next decade and into the future. Solutions should be designed with a long-term perspective, focusing on sustainable economic growth, investing in education and skills development, and adapting to the changing dynamics of the job market.
By combining these principles, effective solutions can be developed to address the depth and persistence of youth unemployment. To tackle youth unemployment successfully and create a lasting impact for millions of young Nigerians, we need a multifaceted approach that values collaboration among stakeholders, leverages successful models, fosters innovation, and catalyses systemic changes.