News: ECOWAS To Set Up Youth Entrepreneurship Programme

Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) said yesterday that plans were underway to inaugurate a youth entrepreneurship programme.

Head of Youth, Sport and Employment Division of the Commission, Mr Kennedy Barsisa, announced this in Ahuja. Barsisa said the aim was to provide financial support to enable young entrepreneurs to develop their businesses and also fight unemployment
in the region.

He said that promoting entrepreneurship was the fastest way of getting people employed. "A lot must be done to address the problem of youth unemployment in Africa, as it is associated with higher levels of crime, violence and drug use which hinder economic growth.

"We are thinking of establishing a regional fund for the empowerment of the youth and that will be geared toward providing support to young entrepreneurs to develop their own businesses," he said.

Barsisa advocated for the creation of opportunities to allow for the huge potentials that abound in the region. According to him, it is necessary to unlock people's creativity, allow people to innovate and start new companies because all these will add to promoting entrepreneurship.

Barsisa said that a draft paper on the initiative had been developed, although it had yet to be adopted". "The idea was that entrepreneurs would he provided with funds to establish their businesses.

"They would generate funds and pay back and as they pay back, others would be benefiting from it,"he added. Barsisa said there would be well regulated guidelines and conditions for accessing the funds to ensure transparency.

"You find out that initiatives like this are abused everywhere; that is why people, even the government, do not want to get involved in this kind of programme," he said.

Source: Hallmark