Youth Unemployment: Aanef Calls For Multi Stakeholder Approach.

Forum 1 year ago

Youth Unemployment: Aanef Calls For Multi Stakeholder Approach.

YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT:*

*AANEF CALLS FOR MULTI STAKEHOLDER APPROACH.*

The African Ambassadors Network Forum (Aanef Nigeria) has called for a multi-stakeholder approach to solving Nigeria's growing youth unemployment rate which has contributed to the increased insecurity and criminal activities ravaging the nation.

*Speaking in a virtual conversation to a selected youth based organisation in South Eastern Nigeria , Amb. Timothy Nwachukwu Esq, The Country Director, African Ambassadors Network Forum (Aanef Nigeria) and the Special Assistant on Media to His Excellency Ambassador Elijah Onyeagba PhD, Nigeria's Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Burundi, East Africa expressed deep concern over the recent revelation that Nigerian youths are lagging behind their global peers when it comes to developing key contemporary competencies across the technology, business, and data science domains, with Nigeria ranking 98th in the world and 10th in Africa in the 2022.*

Amb. Timothy Nwachukwu who is the African Union Agenda 2063 Ambassador stated that the youth population represents a potential human resource for the present and future development of Nigeria, since about half of population of Nigeria is youth, serious efforts need to be exerted to promote the access of young people to ICT facilities and innovations.

He opined that increasing the digital empowerment of youth and women in Nigeria is critical to economic development because digital transformation represents a real opportunity for youth employment, and has the potential to accelerate Nigeria's achievement of the goals set out under Agenda 2063, adopted by the African Union (AU).

He maintained that digital economy has new technological opportunities for the youths bearing in mind the fragile nature of African states where political crisis is imminent, Hence, there is a need to actively encourage innovation, creativity, and exploration in education since institutionalized thinking in current education system hinders new teaching methods which are critical in imparting digital skills.

He commended Coursera, one of the world’s largest online learning platforms, for partnering with Nigeria’s National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) to provide graduates of the NYSC programme who have been out of school for at least a year, students participating in the Student Industrial Work Experience Programme and over 8000 Nigeria youths with access to educational materials from prestigious institutions like Yale, and industry leaders like Meta and Google in a bid to help Nigerians upskill themselves with the skills needed to enter the workforce and contribute to the digital economy.

Amb. Nwachukwu called on State governments, the organised private sectors, non- governmental organisations and industry leaders to synergise with the Federal government of Nigeria in creating an enabling environment where the youths can live and drive digital economic trends by investing in areas of the digital economy such as coding, artificial intelligence, robotics, cyber security, networking, connectivity, research, and design to improve and provide quality comprehensive digital education to the Nigerian youths.

African Ambassadors Network forum can be reached via aanefnigeria@gmail.com or +2348097311499.*