WEF: World leaders harp on value addition, jobs creation

About one thousand delegates including world leaders including Heads of Governments, business leaders, policy development technocrats and civil society groups from over eighty countries are attending the forum in Abuja.The forum, which is the 24th edition, has as its theme: ‘Forging Inclusive Growth, Creating Jobs’.Experts share the view that Nigeria has huge advantages in human […]

About one thousand delegates including world leaders including Heads of Governments, business leaders, policy development technocrats and civil society groups from over eighty countries are attending the forum in Abuja.
The forum, which is the 24th edition, has as its theme: ‘Forging Inclusive Growth, Creating Jobs’.
Experts share the view that Nigeria has huge advantages in human and mineral resources for which it should exploit to reduce the challenges of unemployment.
Another challenge facing the country is the fair utilization and redistribution of its wealth. Experts believe that while the country receives the largest amount of highest foreign direct investment making it one of the top 20 global investment destinations in the world today, much of that has gone into portfolio investments rather than to the real sector.
For a country with 168 million, Nigeria needs to encourage SME development through value addition entrepreneurship training and micro credits. Agriculture remains the most labour intensive and less technical sector that the country can leverage on to create a huge SME sector.
A recent report by the National Bureau of Statistics puts Nigeria’s unemployment rate at 23 per cent. The country also has an active population of 60 per cent, who fall into the age bracket of 15 to 64 years, out of 170 million people.
Donald Kaberuka, President of the African Development Bank said the forum will provide opportunity to address the issue of inclusive growth the continent particularly, Nigeria’s economy.
Aracha Gonzalez, the Executive Director of the International Trade Centre on Wednesday urged Nigeria to invest in enhancing competitiveness of products made by her numerous Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).
She called for more value addition to products from the agriculture sector, adding “especially in developing the value chain, investing in competitiveness, in quality, productivity, and capacity building.”
Apart from adding value and increasing competitiveness of the following agric products such as cocoa, cassava, rice, millet among others, Nigeria can also invest in capacity building for the unemployed youths.
Indeed, the Minister of Finance Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala while briefing the media on the WEF, said that the that the Nigerian government was looking to use the forum to seeks ways of impacting needed skills in the unemployed youths to make them employable.