Every 15 July, the world marks World Youth Skills Day, a UN observance established in 2014 to spotlight something governments, employers, and institutions still don’t take seriously enough: that skills, on their own, are not the same thing as opportunity.
This year’s theme, “Skills for a Shared Future,” landed at a moment when that gap feels sharper than ever. NGYouthSDGs marked the day with a virtual dialogue bringing together ILO Nigeria, GIZ Nigeria, and The Future Project, grounded in fresh data, real employer experience, and a candid conversation about what’s actually broken.
Policy Is Moving, on Two Fronts at Once
Aisha Dirisu of ILO’s SEESIN project opened with a reminder often lost in rooms full of good intentions that entrepreneurship and employment don’t happen in a vacuum, they’re shaped, and constrained, by policy. In August 2025, the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment launched a revised National Employment Policy, now steered by the National Employment Council.
In parallel, the Federal Ministry of Youth Development is revising the Nigerian Youth Employment Action Plan (NIYEAP). Kikelomo Collins of GIZ’s SKYE programme added the on-the-ground layer that TVET curriculum reform, employer linkages, and career guidance already running in six states of Edo, Enugu, Lagos, Oyo, Plateau, and the FCT.
The Research Behind the Conversation
The sharpest moment of the day came from NGYouthSDGs’ own evidence base: the Youth Participatory Research on Decent Work in Nigeria, a survey of 2,149 young people across all 36 states and the FCT, delivered with UNIFOR, presented by Itodo Bartholomew.
The findings reframe the “skills gap” conversation entirely. More than seven in ten respondents reported experiencing at least one workplace violation such as §unpaid wages, no written contract, unsafe conditions, harassment, unfair dismissal. Awareness of rights is not the bottleneck; the ability to act on them is. Only 30% of respondents believe government policy adequately protects their employment rights.
Read the Beyond Awareness Research
What the Panel Actually Said
The panel on “Skills, Policy, Financing” pulled no punches. Ayodeji Razaq, Group CEO of Red Media Africa, was blunt about the real skills gap he sees hiring young people: not a knowledge deficit, but a practice deficit, graduates who’ve learned the theory but never had a live environment to apply it in. He pointed straight back to the Beyond Awareness data to make his point: with 73.8% of young workers lacking formal contracts, this isn’t a story about young people needing more training, it’s a story about employers needing better models to formalise them.
On why formalisation is hard, he was equally direct: for project-based industries like media, informality is often about practicality and cost, not unwillingness and with only 30% of young people trusting that a reported violation would actually be enforced, there’s currently little practical downside for employers who stay informal. What’s missing, in his view, is not employer goodwill but incentives for formalising, and flexible employment models that still guarantee fair pay and protection.
Ebiho Agun, representing the Federal Ministry of Youth Development, confirmed the NIYEAP revision is underway with active stakeholder consultation, and committed to reviewing NGYouthSDGs’ research in depth as that process continues, echoing how NGYouthSDGs data shaped the previous NIYEAP cycle.
Perhaps the most grounded moment came from Deborah Adelaja of the NGYouthSDGs Youth Advisory Board, who described the gap between having certifications and volunteer leadership experience, and actually being hired, because employers weighted years of formal experience over demonstrated competence. Her way in, eventually, was an internship.
Three Words, One Ask
Asked for a single action to most improve young people’s access to decent work, the panel’s answers converged on something simple: preparation (skills development), proximity (implementation that actually reaches the state and community level, not just Abuja), and access (mentorship and role models who make an industry feel reachable).
None of that replaces the harder structural fixes, a functioning Labour Market Information System, a national qualification framework that makes skills transferable across settings, incentives for formalising youth employment. But it’s a useful reminder that policy change and personal agency aren’t competing stories. They’re the same story, told from different seats at the table.
NGYouthSDGs thanks GIZ Nigeria, ILO Nigeria, and The Future Project for co-convening this dialogue, and all speakers, panelists, and participants for a candid and constructive conversation.
