The Honourable Minister of Labour and Employment, Sen. Chris Ngige has expressed optimism that the collaboration between the Federal Government of Nigeria and the African Development Bank (AFDB), on a program termed “Public-Private Roundtable on Youth Employment and Skills Development in Nigeria” will accelerate job creation and reduced skill gap through the mobilization of investments between the public and private sectors of the economy.
Inaugurating the Ministerial Committee on the Public-Private Roundtable on Youth Employment and Skills Development in Nigeria recently, Ngige stated that; “the programme, which has an overall objective of mobilizing financing for the employment and skills sub-sector has as one of the expected outcomes identifying the most suitable financing options for eight priority projects.”
Speaking further the Minister emphasized that the programme is structured for multi-sectorial implementation through a Task Team constituted from the key relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government, with special recognition of the Private Sector due to their large share of employment creation potentials.
“The Public-Private Partnership Roundtable is a partnership initiative for deepening joint efforts to tackle youth unemployment and skills gaps in Nigeria with the support of the African Development Bank Group.” Ngige stressed.
Earlier in her remarks the Director Special Project in the Ministry, Dr. Martina Nwordu recalled that the Federal Government had earlier requested the African Development Bank Group to meet with the Honourable Minister of Labour and Employment, Sen. Chris Ngige to work out modalities on the delivery of a partnership programme to address the issue of youth unemployment and skills gap in Nigeria.
She added that work has commenced at the secretariat of the project domiciled in the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment with the assistance of the consultant hired by the African Development Bank Group to fine-tune documents for the first meeting of the Task Team and other related activities.