United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Country Director, Samuel Bwalya has disclosed that the Agency in collaboration with the Federal Government has embarked on training millions of Nigerians.

Bwalya made this disclosure on Saturday in Maiduguri at the end of a six-day entrepreneurships training programme that the agency would trains millions of Nigerians in entrepreneurial skills in the next five years.

“We have commenced our engagement with the government of Nigeria to establish a youth employability, innovation and entrepreneurship development programme which will run from this year for the next five years.

“The objective of the programme is to stimulate entrepreneurship in Nigeria, support private sector development and focus on the young people who are asking for skills that they need either to become employable because the skills that are demanded in the market are certainly different from the skills the young people have today.

“So, the first component of the programme is to focus on intervention that will make the young people employable in the market and under the employability programme we are training people with new skills that are demanded by the market and we assist the trained young people to be employed Bwalya explained that the entrepreneurship training exercise is aim to change the mindset of young people and expose them to accounting, business development, value change and marketing techniques.

He disclosed that the agency was working with ‘up-taker industries’, to employ graduates of its training programmes as well as promote credit facilities to enable those who could not secure employment set up their businesses. Bwalia added that the programme would be implemented in Adamawa, Borno, Benue, Edo and Yobe States. The director urged the beneficiaries to utilise what they and engaged in productive activities.

Earlier, Mr Alamai Izge, the Director, Research, Planning and Statistics, Borno State Ministry of Reconstruction, Rehabilitation and Resettlement, lauded the UNDP over the gesture. Izge noted that such intervention would accelerate growth of small businesses, address social and economic problems caused by the Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast region.