13 December 2015, Lagos – General Electric, Nigeria, has launched the Skills White Paper, a research document targeted at improving the capacity of Nigeria to harness the potential of its growing young population.
According to the White paper, Sub Saharan Africa is estimated to be home to a quarter of people aged 24 and below by 2030 Pith Nigeria contributing the most significant number of Africa’s youth population.
The document, with the title, Building Strong Workforces to Power Africa’s growth: The Future of Work in Africa, conforms to the determination of GE, to partner which countries and other global concerns (where necessary) to localise skills and build the capacity of host countries to gainfully employ their teeming population in the near future.
The Skills White Paper identifies that Nigeria is currently unable to provide jobs and prospects to majority of its young and growing population, a situation which is buttressed by statistics that put youth employment in the country at 50%
Lazarus Angbazo, President & CEO, GE Nigeria, advised that this situation must change “because it condemns large numbers of young people to low living standards and represents a terrible waste of human capital that undermines future economic growth, but also because it poses a risk to social and economic stability”