Thread:National Youth Policy and Advocacy (13)

Am Ebiho Agun from Nigeria: My country (Nigeria) has a National Youth Policy, which was recently reviewed in the year 2009. During the process of developing the policy, a number of priority themes that pose the greatest challenge to youth in Nigeria were identified and strategies were designed in the policy to deal with these issues. Youth and Employment is one of those priority themes and self employment creation (Youth Entrepreneurship) is listed as a strategy to promote youth employment in Nigeria.

Other priority themes that promote youth entrepreneurship are the Youth and Agriculture Component, which outlines strategies to promote youth involvement in the Agricultural sector in order to boost the Nigerian economy, while also providing opportunities for the emergence and sustenance of youth agro-business entrepreneurs.

Providing quality education for young people is another priority theme in the policy which has strategies outlined to promote youth entrepreneurship by providing vocational opportunities for youth to make them self reliant

A segment in the policy also outlines the institutional framework that will ensure effective implementation of the policy and one of the components of this segment is the establishment of a Youth Development Fund. The Youth Development Fund when fully established by the government of Nigeria is expected to provide the funds to finance all youth development programmes conceived in relation to the implementation of the National Youth Policy, Youth Entrepreneurship inclusive.