Chiamaka Ajeamo
The Foundation for Partnership Initiatives in the Niger Delta (PIND) has implored federal and state governments to invest in data to address unemployment in Nigeria.
Tunji Idowu, PIND’s deputy executive director, who made this call at the maiden Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF) Employment Summit, themed; “Showcasing Leading Practices for Job Creation,” stated that lack of data planning on the part of state governments poses great challenge to job creation.
He stressed the importance of data planning: “Data is pivotal to the planning and designing of interventions as it reveals details of happenings in the market place, skills that are required and areas one needs to focus on so as to provide relevant jobs in the business environment.
“State governments should not rely on the Federal Government, which has the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) for national and regional data collation. They should create their own database that will source and provide relevant data to help solve numerous challenges, especially unemployment.
“State governments, individually or collectively, should invest in data to ensure there is valid data from their areas because when data exists, they themselves will be able to benefit from it to make better quality decisions and analysis to inform their own decisions.
“Government should take the lead to have an integrated systematic way of collecting, sharing data and making it available for use. If that is available, organisations implementing a project do not need to spend extra money on data research, they can access that and be faster on the job of getting things done while also saving money they would have spent on fresh analysis on actual interventions.”
Idowu, whose organisation empowers aquaculture, palm oil and cassava farmers in the Niger Delta region, also identified market distortions as a challenge to job creation: “PIND and only a few organisations approach the economic growth project using market systems development approach without distorting already built markets.
“Market distortion is another main issue to unemployment that is why we at PIND are market system driven. We do not go in to distort the market by doing things on our own then exit and there is no sustainable result.
“We go in to support those who are already doing their businesses. A lot of organizations still use the direct interventionist approach. It is faster to get results but when the projects end, sustainability slows down pretty quickly.”
Emeka Ile, the executive director of the Niger Delta Youth Employment Pathways, a project by PIND urged state governments to adopt the same model which is demand-led: “We train people based on market demands, skills within the market so as to allow them to get into the market space.
“We are not just training people. As we train them, we also have placement, to provide work for them or to provide work for themselves through entrepreneurship. They get work for themselves and also in the position to employ other people.”
Senior Special Adviser to the President on Job Creation, Mr. Afolabi Imoukhuede, urged the private sector to lead the way in job creation, advising government to provide good policy and the enabling environment for the private sector to operate and grow.