Jonathan canvasses global support for job creation efforts

President Goodluck Jonathan has appealed to international development partners and the private sector to support his government’s efforts to create jobs for the youth.

The President made the appeal on Monday when he inaugurated the second edition of the Youth Enterprise With Innovation in Nigeria (YouWin) programme aimed at providing grants to about 1,200 entrepreneurs.

The President said he decided to devote the edition solely to female entrepreneurs in recognition of the increasingly central role women were playing in the nation’s overall economic development.

He said, “I urge all stakeholders, including our youths and their leaders in the private sector, as well as international and development partners to join hands with us as we expand this laudable initiative and give fresh hope to our young people.

“People may ask why the government talks about YouWin; of course, we know that the present administration is committed to creating jobs for Nigerians. And jobs can be created through direct employment by government and her parastatals and agencies; but, we believe that a more sustainable approach to job creation is encouraging the private sector.”

“And to do that, we need to build young entrepreneurs who will be able to employ five or more people and that multiplier effect will give us more job opportunities than even government expanding the parastatals that will make them less productive. That is one of the cardinal points of YouWin,” he added.

He said the edition would also help address the relatively low participation of women with just about 17 per cent of winners in the first edition, which was designed for both men and women.

Under this phase, he said 1,200 women would receive between N1m and N10m over the next 12 to 18 months.

In addition to the grants provided for the 1,200 winners, Jonathan said at least 6,000 aspiring young entrepreneurs would be selected, trained and equipped with high quality business skills each year.

This, he added, would enable them harness their business and job creation potential.

The President said, “The first reason why we are focusing on women solely this time is that globally, the world talks about women and children. It is a topical point globally and Nigeria must be among the comity of nations.

“So, we must come up with programmes that will help women and protect and save lives of children, that is at the UN level. So, we must do things that other nations will copy from us, we should not only be copying from others.”

“In another ways too, women, in terms of using small money to create opportunities, have done it better than men,” he added.

Jonathan also reiterated his position that the era of godfathers must end in the country, saying it was high time for things to be done based on merit.

He said, “One of the awardees said earlier that after filling the forms, she wanted to get a contact in the Ministry of Finance that will facilitate the process of her winning; unfortunately, she couldn’t but later realised she didn’t even need it.

“We want to change that mentality and syndrome that you must know somebody to talk to somebody and we have begun with the YouWin Programme. That mentality must change. Gradually, we are changing it. You cannot change a society overnight, it is step-by-step. I promise Nigerians that I will sanitise Nigeria.”

The Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said the programme was designed for women because they occupied a very strategic place in entrepreneurship in the country.