Ministry of Youth and Sports Development partners Junior Achievement Nigeria for Youth Development

Ministry of Youth and Sports Development partners Junior Achievement Nigeria for Youth Development

By Niyi Busari

Continuing on its quest to ensure that the Nigerian Youth is equipped with the needed digital skills to compete favourably in the world, Ministry of Youth and Sports Development has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Junior Achievement Nigeria (Worldwide), the non profit organisation in the world, leading in financial literacy training, digital skills acquisition and entrepreneurship for the Youth.

The Minister revealed that the signing of the MoU is a culmination of several meetings between the Ministry and the Junior Achievement Nigeria, in the past several months with an overriding passion and concern on both sides is for the Nigerian Youth.

Highlighting the importance of the partnership, the Minister said, "Based on data and statistics, you will know that clearly there is a digital skills gap not just in Nigeria, but also across Africa. So, there is a need for us to ensure that we give our Youth the necessary digital skills to be able to produce the digital tools they need to become entrepreneur, self-starters and also gain employment.

"Once again this brings us to an important juncture in an effort to leverage on some public-private partnership and also to seek out strategic implementation partner as we work not just to empower our youth but to invest in them to providing them with requisite skills necessary for engagement in the 21st century digital economy.

Recalling the President's charge to keep the productively busy, he said ways to keep the Youth busy includes making them employable more, more knowledgeable and equipping them with what they need to be able to compete in the world.

"Yes we are about Sports, but we are also about Youth Development. This understanding and partnership with Junior Achievement we believe, will go a long way in helping to bridge the digital skills gaps among the Youths of this country.

He reiterated the Ministry's commitment to playing a key part in the process which is embedded in the DEEL initiative which looks at Digital literacy and Digital skills, Enterpreneurship, Employment, Leadership and Mentoring. He said the Ministry would leverage on the 64 digital hubs owned by Junior Achievement Nigeria across the country in conjunction with about 24 Youth Development centres the Ministry hopes to bring on board across the country, with others centres as will be made available by the Central Bank of Nigeria.

The Executive Director Mrs. Simisola Nwogugu responding, thanked the Minister and said that in line with the organisation's 20th anniversary celebration, the organisation is scaling up the number of Youth to equip with digital and entrepreneurial skills and would do just that with this partnership.