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Alemayehu Konde Koira is the senior programme manager-youth livelihoods, MasterCard Foundation. In this interview with JOSEPHINE OKOJIE, Koira talks about the MasterCard Foundation and Michigan State University’s (MSU) $13million investment in youth employment in Nigeria through the AgriFood Youth Lab initiative. Excerpts
What is the AgriFood Youth Opportunity Lab all about and what does it aim to achieve?
The Agrifood system is the activity, process, people and institutions involve themselves to supply a population with food and other agricultural products. The MasterCard Foundation in partnership with Michigan State University (MSU), through the AgriFood Youth Opportunity Lab, will work with local partners to design, implement, and monitor interventions that equip out-of-school, disadvantaged youth in horticulture, aquaculture, poultry, cassava, and oilseed sectors in Nigeria and Tanzania.
The programme will focus on creating pathways that link youth to training and the private sector, either as entrepreneurs or employees. In Nigeria, the programme will help 10,000 young people transition into sustainable livelihoods. The programme focuses on states and regions in Nigeria where there are high rates of youth un-employment and under-employment, productive agricultural zones that are close to major urban processing and consumption centres.
What are the specific skill sets that participants of the AgriFood Youth Opportunity Lab will acquire and what difference will these make?
Young people in Nigeria will be trained in the areas of retail, wholesale, farm processing, and food processing and equipped with demand driven skills in the high demand sectors of aquaculture, horticulture, poultry, oilseeds and cassava.
Participants will benefit from being part of the youth lab community, which will provide youth with motivation, inspiration, support and networking. The lab will also connect young people to other employers and opportunities for work. These skills will enable the youths to join the labour force or to start their own businesses.
Are there similar AgriFood Youth Opportunity Lab models around the world or in Africa that is being replicated here in Nigeria?
The project translates the MasterCard Foundation’s commissioned research on the AgriFood System called the AgriFood Youth Employment and Engagement Study (AgYees), the study focused on Nigeria, Tanzania and Rwanda and looked at agrifood systems throughout sub-Saharan Africa. The foundation believes that interventions that focus on opportunities within the agrifood system will offer better entry-points and future employment and entrepreneurship opportunities for young people.
Currently, the Agrifood lab is taking off across the Western states in Nigeria, are there plans to extend the initiative to other regions, especially the northern region where the country records high rates of youth unemployment and school drop-outs?
The lab is being piloted in the Oyo, Osun and Ogun states which support the Lagos food shed. They were chosen because they are near to Lagos where there is a strong demand for agricultural products, connected by infrastructure that can move products easily, located in regions where the key implementing partners work that is Oyo State College of Agriculture and Technology (OYSCATECH) and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), regions where governments can be leveraged to support the project, and states where there are high levels of youth unemployment. Moreover, there is strong government investment in these regions that can be leveraged.
Nigerian government has been seeking to make agriculture attractive to youths; will the youth initiative help in that regard?
The foundation believes that there are many opportunities for young people along the agricultural value chain beyond production. Agribusinesses, processing and manufacturing, trading, export, transport, and retail sales are other viable options. Enhancing the productivity of the agrifood system is important for increasing income generation. The lab will work with universities, Technical Vocational Education and Technical Schools (TVETs), financial service providers and the private sector to provide technical, business and life-skills training courses in poultry, horticulture, fisheries, cassava, and oilseeds. Training on how to use ICT and modern, appropriate agricultural technologies will be included in the program.
How can the initiative help with the Nigerian government’s diversification drive through agriculture?
Ag youth lab will contribute towards the government’s efforts in deepening its work in the country’s food system as well as contribute to innovations in technology. Furthermore, MSU and the MasterCard Foundation’s discussions with the government institutes of Oyo, Osun and Ogun indicate there is commitment to the success of this project and have even offered to give land to the youth participants.
Why is this initiative targeting youths between 18 and 22 years?
The MasterCard Foundation’s projects focus on rural and urban out-of-school youth between the ages of 18-24 year who are unemployed or underemployed. We work with partner organisations like MSU to prepare young people for employment/entrepreneurship in agriculture through training on new farming techniques to improve yields, providing relevant skills development, including entrepreneurship skills, business management skills, financial literacy, internships and mentorship, increasing access to financial services, including credit and loans so that young people can buy or lease land and buy farming inputs such as seeds or fertilizer.
How will this be sustained beyond the present administration?
The project will work with multi-stakeholders across various levels of governments. I was impressed by the remarks given during the launch by representatives of the vice-president, the MoA and the governors from the three states. In addition, there is support for this project across industry representatives and institutions like OYSCATECH and IITA. There are multiple commitments across the board, as well as validation for the project idea by young Agripreneurs themselves, who have played a key role in the programme design process and will play an important role in the implementation of the project.
