The United Nations Environment-Ecosystem Based Adaptation for Food Security Assembly (UNEP-EBAFOSA) Nigeria has called for collaboration among major stakeholders to create 11million jobs yearly.
Its National President, Mr James Oyesola, stated this at an inter-ministerial/agencies policy task force meeting in Abuja.
He said key stakeholders should tackle climate change challenges to facilitate job creation in the agricultural sector.
He said: “The key issue is that addressing climate change challenges, implementing SDGs and our nationally-determined contributions, among others, can’t be implemented in ‘silos’.
‘’Therefore, there is the need to bridge policy gaps by breaking inter-ministerial silos through convening policy makers in relevant line ministries of environment, agriculture, industry, energy, forestry, lands, trade, finance etc., as well as non-state actors in policy research, for collaborative policy processes.
“Also, to catalyse investment in clean energy powered agro-industrialisation, agriculture policies will need to reconcile with industry policies, energy policies, lands policies and private investors to ensure relevant-cross cutting policies that incentivise investment by both state and non-state actors in plants and clean-processing industries near high potential agro-production areas. Infrastructure policies need to be synchronised to ensure prioritised investments in rural roads for efficient connection of production areas or these agro-industrial zones to market areas.”
Earlier, the UN Environment Africa Climate Change Coordinator, Dr. Richard Munang, lamented the increasing youthful and unemployed population amid untapped opportunities.
“For every three million jobs, there are up to 12 million youths competing for them each year. Right here in Nigeria, while 1.2 million fresh people joined the pool of job seekers in just one quarter of 2017, another 1.6 million who were in full time employment lost their jobs in the same period. The implication is Nigeria may need to create up to 2.8 million jobs per quarter, which translates to about 11 million jobs each year. The implication is the urgent need to increase opportunities exponentially. Across Africa, this youth bulge has been christened a “ticking time bomb.
‘’Yet, these youths represent the most sovereign capital we have as a continent to tap and drive growth,” he explained.