The savannah regional branch of the Ghana Enterprise Agency has held a sensitization meeting on their new programme ( Ghana Jobs and skills project ) for unemployed youth and young entrepreneurs at Damongo in the savannah regional capital.
In a welcome address on Tuesday, 11th October, 2022, the Regional Director for the agency, Mr. Alidu Ewura explained that, the Ghana jobs and skills project is a youth entrepreneurship and start-up grants project expected to culminate into job creation, job sustainability, business innovation and growth for enterprises owned by the youth in the country leading to the reduction of social vices due to unemployment amongst the youth.
He also explained that, the purpose of the sensitization is for the agency to introduce the new project from it’s outfit to the the teaming unemployed youth of the region and admonished all qualified youths in the region to take advantage of the project in order to get something doing.
Mr. Ewura noted that, the application processes are done online with some few hardcopies of the application forms available for persons who will not be able to apply through the online processes.
He revealed that, the Savannah region of the Ghana Enterprise Agency received a good number of applications during their mastercard project following the interest showed by the people of which a good number of them benefited and hoped that, a lot more of the youth will show interest for the project from the agency.
He also noted that, all qualified applicants will receive mentoring and coaching support, which encompasses guidance to enable them prepare their business plans, meet business registration and licensing requirements, and connect with input and output markets including Short duration internship, mentoring and guidance sessions for some selected beneficiaries.
He added that, the grants will be available to individuals with high potentials to succeed in business and operating in any of the non-resource-based sectors with a minimum qualification of BECE or higher.
The Savannah regional minister, Hon. Saeed Muhazu Jibriel in a key note address explained that, unemployment and under employment remains one of the main global development challenges with which the world bank estimated that about 2 million youths are unemployed worldwide which requires a total of 600 million jobs over the next fifteen years to maintain the global employment rate.
The Minister noted that, since 1957 to 2017, people under public sector employment were only 600 thousand across the country which requires the intervention of the private sector to absorb the bigger numbers that are unemployed.
He further explained that, the present New Patriotic party government has since 2017 added some 400,000 people to the public sector employment which has brought the total number of people on the public sector payroll to 1 million which indicates that the government has only employed 1million people out a pupolation near 38 million.
He said in 2016, it was projected in Ghana that due to the country’s growing youth population, some 300,000 new jobs were to be created each year to absorb the increasing number of unemployment of the youth in the country.
He recalled that, unemployment and under employment were part of the main development challenges confronted with the country when the New patriotic party took over in 2017 which called for urgent needs to look out for creative ways of solving the problem.
In an attempt to address the situation, Hon. Muhazu said, the NPP under the leadership of of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo – Addo came out with a number of policies and projects aimed at addressing the unemployment and under employment situations in the country which included the Nation builders Corp, the planting for food and jobs programme, the 1district 1 factory initiate among others.
He added that, to further push the agenda for job creation for the teaming youth, the government created the Ghana Enterprise Agency formerly known as NBSSI with an act of 2020 ( act 1043 ) to replace the NBSSI since it’s establishment in November, 2020.
According to the Minister, the Ghana Enterprise Agency under the ministry of trade and industry has designed and rolled out a number of policies, projects and activities aimed at addressing unemployment in the country which included the Covid-19 response grants, the GEA/MasterCard Foundation Young Africa Works Project and the Ghana Jobs and skills project of which they were being sensitized.
He concluded by employing the participants to take advantage of the project to obtain a livelihood as the application processes will be transparent and Non – partisan for all qualified applicants and thanked the regional director for the Ghana Enterprise Agency for the wonderful work he is doing to equip the young men and women in the region.
The Agency will provide entrepreneurship training to 50,000 youth and early adults who have the potential to start a business. Three levels of entrepreneurship training will be offered: basic, intermediate, and advanced. The training will be based on standardized, quality-assured packages in different locations nationwide. All training will be delivered using an experiential participatory approach conducive for adult learning and will also be district based and non-residential.
The Business Start-up Grants will deploy financial support to selected youth who successfully undergo training up to the intermediate level. These grants will be available to individuals and self-formed groups, majority-owned by Ghanaians, with high potential to succeed in business, and operating in any of the non-resource-based sectors.
The World Bank is providing financing and technical support to the Government of Ghana for the implementation of the Ghana Jobs and Skills Project for state stability, social cohesion, and economic inclusion.
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