Nigeria has failed to harness the productivity of youths for national development, despite her robust youth population estimated at 70 million. But the Nigerian Youth Chamber of Commerce (NYCC) is poised to reverse the trend. It has outlined some strategies to facilitate investments in youth-focused start-ups and micro-enterprises. Assistant Editor CHIKODI OKEREOCHA reports.
A fresh vista of opportunity may have been opened for youth entrepreneurs.
The Nigerian Youth Chamber of Commerce (NYCC), the umbrella body of youth entrepreneurs, has unveiled some strategies to boost innovative and industrious energies of youths in production.
Part of the initiative tagged: “Decade of Campaign on Youth Entrepreneurship in Nigeria 2015–2025’ is aimed at youth entrepreneurship promotion and development to inspire and deepen entrepreneurship among youths.
The campaign is also aimed at stimulating and sustaining relevant stakeholders’ engagement and conversation on the imperativeness of entrepreneurship as well as mobilise support for sustainable promotion and development of functional youth entrepreneurship. Under the campaign to be formally launched in Abuja in July, no fewer than three million functional youth-led start-ups/micro-enterprises would be created every three years in the next 10 years under the Vision 2015-2025 document.
An average of five people is expected to be employed by each of the one million enterprises to be created. In all, 15 million jobs would be created.
Its Director General/Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Comrade Peter Ayim, said other highpoints of the launch, which would engage the attention of the in-coming administration shortly after inauguration on May 29, will be the launch of N100billion Nigerian Youth Entrepreneurship Development Fund (NYEDF) and inauguration of National Council of Youth Entrepreneurs (NCYE).
He said the N100billion NYEDF would be a ‘donor basket fund’ to be domiciled in Bank of Industry (BoI), adding that it will be a corporate guarantee to serve as collateral for functional youth-led enterprises.
He said NYCC’s strategic objective is to mainstream youth in the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) sector through robust policy advocacy and constructive engagement with government and development partners.
The campaign, he said, is also designed to form the superstructure for constructive stakeholders’ engagement on some areas and policy advocacy, suggest innovative solutions and promote global best practices in youth entrepreneurship promotion and development.
Ayim noted that beyond theinauguration of the NCYE and the launch of the NYEDF, the decade campaign has the objective to reduce unemployment in the country to zero per cent through functional entrepreneurship.
It will also create a data base for youth entrepreneurs to access enterprise growth tips and create a comprehensive business directory for youth entrepreneurs.
The programme, he added, would also establish NYCC Academy for start-ups and micro-enterprise development.
Other objectives of the campaign, Ayim said, include creating a link with training service providers (TSP) to train and certify entrepreneurship, creating enterprise policing system (EPS) to monitor and guide NYCC certified entrepreneurs from going into liquidation. It will also conduct research on the non-oil sector for entrepreneurs to know how to apply their strengths and help to conduct feasibility report for members to be properly guided.
The NYCC chief noted that entrepreneurship, though an emerging phenomenon, is fast gaining momentum and being acknowledged as the critical pathway to growing the economy, generating jobs and creating wealth, thereby combating and reducing unemployment, hunger and poverty.
He, however, regretted that although policy makers seem to appreciate the prospects, potentials and positive impact of entrepreneurship, it is evident that they have not been able to develop a result-oriented and sustainable policy framework and intervention mechanism targeted at supporting the accelerated promotion and development of functional youth entrepreneurship in the country.
Ayim said though the government has demonstrated commitment to promoting youth entrepreneurship through short-term intervention programmes, most of the intervention programmes are either limited in scope and do not benefit a broad spectrum of aspiring youth entrepreneurs to facilitate start-ups or assist youth entrepreneurs in expanding their businesses.
He cited the YouWIN programme of the Federal Government, pointing out that “such short-term measures are usually handouts and tokenism that cannot in any sense facilitate and grow a functional start-up or micro-enterprise”.
‘YouWiN’, an acronym for Youth Enterprise with Innovation in Nigeria, is a competition launched by the Federal Government to create jobs by encouraging and supporting aspiring entrepreneurial youths to develop and execute business ideas. The initiative hopes to trigger a ripple effect that would inspire the creative and entrepreneurial spirit of millions of youths across the country.
The scheme is also expected to help identify and empower young entrepreneurs with the technical skills and capital needed to start or grow a business such that they could create employment for themselves and others in different areas. But Ayim said the scheme is limited in scope.
He decried the orientation of state and non-state actors, adding that they are in a hurry to jumpstart employment policies that are only targeted at giving grants and soft loans to youths to keep them off the street and engage them with an activity they don’t understand its guiding philosophy and modus operandi. He insisted that such attitude should be discouraged.
He said: “Entrepreneurship as it is being practised should not become government’s bait to lure the youth only to maintain law and order. For them, the higher the number, the higher the score card. “Entrepreneurship policies are not intended to build wealth in Nigeria, but used as a criterion to boost government’s performance evaluation. This could be seen in the number of failed schemes in Nigeria youth empowerment drive.”
Ayim identifiedthe lack of synergy between the public and the private sectors.
Said he: “The only seeming existing synergy recently fostered is the public/public synergy between the Industrial Training Fund (ITF), Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) and the BoI.
“There is the urgent imperative for a functional public/private partnership that will facilitate a robust, dynamic and sustainable enterprise development ecosystem in line with contemporary trend and global best practices in the promotion and development of youth entrepreneurship.”