Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Mr. Sunday Dare on Tuesday presented a component of an initiative of his Ministry, Digital Youth Nigeria (DY.ng), to a gathering of continental stakeholders at a panel session of the 2019 African Economic Conference in Sharm-el-Sheik, Egypt with the theme Jobs, Entrepreneurship and Capacity Development for African Youth.
He expressed the confidence that the target of equipping one million youth with digital skills is attainable given the initiative of other stakeholders like the African Development Bank (AfDB).
The Minister, during a session on Ministerial Dialogue on Youth Employment Policy, spoke on the workings of DY.ng, under which the Ministry will train 500,000 youth in digital skills at various youth centres across the six geo-political zones in conjunction with private sector partners.
Mr Dare who also participated in another session on “Enhancing demand-driven digital and technical skills development” said “We are looking at digital literacy at the bottom of the pyramid. Those who are not graduates, with primary school certificates will also be trained in the basic digital skills they need to thrive in this modern time.
“I am now very confident that we can attain the training of 1 million Nigerian youth in digital skills now that I have seen that AfDB is planning for 25 million under its Coding for Employment programme.
DY.ng is a component under DEEL, which stands for Digital skills acquisition, Entrepreneurship, Employability and Leadership.
Mr Dare had said he will use DEEL to scale up the number of youth that are trained under the Federal Government programmes especially since the initiative will work to strengthen the thematic areas of the National Youth Policy.
The panel discussions explored how to better understand the practical policy changes required to create Decent Jobs for Youth and improve their entrepreneurial capacities.
Shortly before departing for the conference at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja on Sunday, Mr Dare noted that “the objective is to network at this conference and bring more potential stakeholders on board in a way that eliminates duplications such that the scarce resources allocated to youth development by each one of them will be effectively used to reach more beneficiaries.
“We are continuing to identify more government agencies and international partners that can plug into what we are doing. We will continue to share our vision for the Nigerian youth with them so what we can find areas of collaboration,” he explained.
Mr. Dare noted that this year’s conference speaks to the various components of DEEL like the Digital Youth Nigeria (DY.ng) that will equip 500,000 youth with the skill needed to thrive in a digitized world, the Work Experience Programme (WEP) that pair youth with corporation organizations to gain work experience thereby boosting their employability and the entrepreneurship component of the initiative that will provide self-employment skills in addition to seeking funding for youth owned enterprises.
