Nigeria Explores Ways to Gainfully Engage Youths
By Patience Ikpeme
The federal government has declared readiness to work with the SNV Netherlands Development Organization to achieve gainful engagement of Nigerian youths.
The Minister of Budget and Economic Planning Senator Abubakar Atiku Bagudu made this revelation during an official visit by the Chief Executive of SNV Netherlands Development Organization, Mr Simon O’Connell in his office in Abuja .
Bagudu stated that the Ministry will focus on the areas of gainfully engaging the youthful population productively, based on the three core areas of the SNV Netherlands Development Organization sectoral focus; Agriculture (food), water and energy, which have significantly impacted on this three sectors globally.
He emphasized that these areas are in line with the Renewed Hope agenda of the President Tinubu’s administration and are top priorities of this administration.
“These are really areas that are consistent with the Renewed Hope agenda of President Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. We have a Minister for Youth, and Minister for Digital economy, a young man himself. We also have the Minister for Women Affairs on gender issues. We can call and arrange another meeting, so that we can see how we will expand this discussion” he explained .
He assured them of the full corporation of the Ministry stating that they will partner and also get every necessary stakeholder involved.
“And again, we can involve some of the Commissioners of economic planning in the respective states. We have what is called a community of practice mechanism where we communicate with them to see how much you can help us with or how much we can partner.” he stated.
Mr Simon O’Connell on his part, revealed that the SNV is looking forward to increasing rice production in the country; as Nigeria is the biggest country in Africa incredibly blessed with natural resources.
He further explained that apart from the three core areas of sectoral focus by the organization which is agri -food, water, and energy, SNV also has deep focus on gender equality and social inclusion, climate adaptation and mitigation, and the strengthening of institutions.
According to Mr. O’Connell,“I know here in Nigeria there is significant horticultural activity. I know here in Nigeria rice production is an area that can be scaled further. Also involved in the energy sector. We’ve established and put in place 1 million youngters globally”.
We’re part of the Africa Biogas Initiative and we see tremendous opportunities to accelerate access to cleaner renewable forms of energy in Nigeria and we would be happy to explore further in this area.”
“We are in the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet with the Rockefeller Foundation, IKEA Foundation and the Bezos Earth Fund and we’re establishing nine mini -grids for solar energy, for irrigated agriculture in Ethiopia and we know there are opportunities to take some of the learnings from Ethiopia through to here in Nigeria.”
It should be noted that SNV, was established in 1965 as a part of the Dutch government’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, contributing to development impacts all over the world and it became an independent foundation in 2002. The organization currently operates in approximately 25 countries around the world
