LSETF, USADF partner to support 15,000 youths in Lagos State

The Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF), has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the United States African Development Fund (USADF) to support 15,000 youth in the State.

This pact is inline the Fund’s mandate to provide employment and entrepreneurship opportunities for residents in Lagos. ,

Through the MoU, both parties will provide equal sum of $2 million every year for five years, totalling $10m to provide skill development and internship opportunities to 3,000 youth between the ages of 18-35, yearly. Women will represent at least 50 per cent of the beneficiaries.

The signing ceremony, which took place in Washington DC, United States of America had top executives of both agencies, members of the U.S Congress, partners and international media present.

Speaking at the signing ceremony, Chairman, LSETF’s Board of Trustees, Mrs. Ifueko Omoigui Okauru, expressed her optimism on impact of the partnership.

“This USADF-LSETF collaboration will enable the expansion of world-class vocational training centers available in the state while developing 15,000 skilled youth for employment into targeted sectors; provision of internship cost subsidies to employers and track real time placement of unemployed youth into jobs”.

Also commenting, the President and Chief Executive Officer of United States African Development Foundation, C. D. Glin, said: “We are proud to be in partnership with the LSETF, whose programmes have been independently verified to be making impact on the lives of young Nigerians. This USADF-LSETF partnership further expands our existing commitment to investing in high impact initiatives hinged on generating income, providing financial solutions and causing a change in the African economy.”

Acting Executive Secretary, LSETF, Teju Abisoye, said: “With the recent Labor Force report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showing a 6.7 per cent drop in unemployment rate as well as Lagos state providing the largest number of 740,146 jobs in the third quarter of 2018, it is obvious that the deliberate employment intervention policies of the Lagos State Government are finally impacting on job creation.”

I am pleased to have USADF join us to create more jobs for our youth, whilst sustainably decreasing our alarming unemployment rate.”

The initiative includes training of participants and provision of internship opportunities over a period of six months and is expected to result in sustainable job and entrepreneurship opportunities.