New project to provide finance and market opportunities to youth agripreneurs
13 February 2023
IITA–CGIAR, through its partnership with the Dutch government, will link 10,000 youth in Nigeria to agribusiness opportunities along various value chains in three states and the Federal Capital Territory.
The partnership, under a new project—Youth in Agribusiness (YAS): Enabling scaling of innovative technologies for sustainable food solution—focuses on training and providing finance and market opportunities to unemployed and underemployed youths between 18 and 35 years. This support will enable them to establish independent agribusiness enterprises.
Beneficiaries drawn from Kano, Ogun, Oyo, and the Federal Capital Territory in Abuja will be hosted at various agribusiness hubs to be established in these locations for innovative technical agriculture and business plan training.
To implement these activities across the locations, IITA has identified a reputable Netherlands-based organization, Bopinc, for inclusive innovation and business empowerment, marketing, and distribution.
As part of the activities mapped out for the inception phase of the project, the partners gathered stakeholders in Abuja during a 4-day Inception Workshop to align its visions with the needs of the identified stakeholders.
The workshop, which started on 23 January, is intended to provide stakeholders with the roadmap for YAS implementation and to help them develop the project implementation strategy that will inform its activities for the first year.
The workshop covered five main activities: building a strong baseline for the project, capacity development and training, resource linkages, robust monitoring evaluation, and knowledge management.
The project aims to create viable agribusiness enterprises using innovative climate-smart technologies and business practices that increase income and productivity and improve access to markets in the agribusiness sector.
As the YAS project is about to take off, youth are encouraged to seize the opportunity to create sustainable jobs for themselves and ensure food security and sustainability in Africa.
Contributed by Lola Dare
