LSETF, UNDP seal $4m deal on employability project

By Yinka Kolawole

THE Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF), yesterday, in Lagos, signed a $4 million partnership agreement with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for the Lagos State Employability Support Project.

Under this partnership, LSETF will provide $3 million while UNDP will bring to the table $1 million in addition to providing expert advice and training support. The partnership deal is a follow-up to a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between the Lagos State Government and UNDP in January 2017, which was facilitated by LSETF.

Speaking shortly before signing the agreement, Executive Secretary, LSETF, Mr. Akin Oyebode, said the deal was a major step in solving what is a major barrier towards investment and towards helping business skills. “We are signing this partnership with UNDP which will help us improve the outcome of employability across certain critical sectors in Lagos.

Financial partners

We are proud to have the UNDP as technical and financial partners to our employability programme which we have designed for the benefit of thousands of unemployed youths in Lagos State. With this support from UNDP, we have received the needed boost in the actualisation of the Fund’s Employability Programme, which will address the twin issues of capacity building for our youths as well as the provision of employment opportunities for them.

“Indeed, the LSETF’s Employability Programme seeks to change the current challenge of ‘non-availability of employable (skilled) workers to meet the Lagos state public/private sector demand. Through this partnership, UNDP and LSETF will expand employment opportunities for youths by upgrading the quality of teaching skills and the curriculum of technical colleges and vocational centers in line with the local demand needs: Provide training in relevant sectors for which skilled and employable youths meet local labour demand and ensure job matching and skilled promotion for trained beneficiaries.

The project will improve the quality of vocational training programmes for the manufacturing, health care, construction, entertainment, tourism and hospitality sectors, upgrade training content to make the labour force technically more competent, strengthen vocational instructor training and improve the capabilities of the participating technical colleges and vocational training centers (VTCs) to plan and manage the training programmes”.

Also commenting, UNDP’s Deputy Country Director, Programme, Ms. Mandisa Mashologu, stated: “Our expectation is that this partnership will serve as a model of how Nigeria can address the employment issue and hope that we can document our key results and translate to other states. The UNDP/LSETF partnership on Employability Support will serve as a model to demonstrate how unemployment can be reduced by addressing key labour supply shortcomings through committed partnership between the public/private sectors and a development agency. The project approach will benefit from UNDP’s global experience and expertise in youth employment programmes across the world.”

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