The COVID19 pandemic has shown the importance of creating safety nets for young Nigerians. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, Nigeria’s unemployment rate is 27.1% meaning that 21.7 million Nigerians are unemployed with an underemployment rate of 28.6% indicating that 55.7% of the population are underemployed or unemployed. Young people who make about 70 per cent of the 180 million population are feeling the impact of the coronavirus acutely from family stress to lost jobs, to mental health and other difficulties.
According to the International Labour Organization, one out of every five youth is not in education, training or employment which further highlights the frustrations of youth with the economic realities today. The recent protest to end police brutality in Nigeria highlights how much young Nigerians demand a system that allows them to develop their skills, acquire meaningful work as well as safety to go about their everyday business.
In other to create an enabling environment to create decent work for young people, government, private sector, and development partners need to ensure that youth are involved in designing policies and programmes that will cater for their needs. It is commonplace to see developmental programmes being designed for youth with no input from the critical stakeholder which is youth.
With the support of the International Labour Organization and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports in partnership with the Nigeria Youth Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Network organized youth labs across the 36 states of Nigeria including the Federal Capital Territory to encourage youth towards providing solutions to the challenges facing them with regards to decent work.
The youth lab which is a physical design solution event brought thirty-five young people together in each state to share ideas focusing on education, entrepreneurship, employability, equality, and rights. The solutions shared during the youth labs would be reflected during the implementation of the Nigeria Youth Employment Action Plan (NIYEAP). The NIYEAP is a policy document that addresses how Nigeria will gainfully empower her growing youth population and serve as a template for youth development programmes from the federal, state, and local government.
Speaking on the youth lab, the Project Coordinator of Nigeria Youth SDGs Network Joshua Alade said the labs have provided a platform for young people in the state to engage meaningfully with policymakers in their states especially those saddled with the responsibilities of ensuring better outcomes for young people. “Hosting the youth lab came with a lot of challenges as most of the states were unaware of the NIYEAP and we had to educate directors in state ministries about this very important document that will ensure holistic human capital development for youth in their state,” Joshua said.
The youth lab served as an opportunity to share the result from the online survey to understand the aspirations of young Nigerians on decent work. The survey had 212,000 responses over a three-week period with youth sharing their concerns with the COVID19 pandemic, how it affects their education and work prospects, what decent works means to them and the barriers that are stopping them from the work they love. Also, participants at the youth lab become a cohort that will support the implementation of the NIYEAP in their state as soon as it is launched in 2021.
As we battle to combat the effects of the pandemic, our efforts must reflect a fundamental understanding: young people are not subjects to be protected but should be seen as citizens with equal rights, as full members of our societies, and as powerful agents for change. The world cannot afford a lost generation of youth, their lives set back by COVID-19 and their voices stifled by a lack of participation. Let us do far more to tap their talents as we tackle the pandemic and chart a recovery that leads to a more peaceful, sustainable, and equitable future for all.
