CBN To Improve Employment Rate Through Grants To Youth

Unemployment has been a major problem in the Nigerian economy for years. The current unemployment rate of 33.3% has created a need for government intervention.

On Wednesday the Central Bank of Nigeria initiated a grant that will support the youths of Nigeria and improve their employability through promotion of entrepreneurship.

The CBN stated that, “Five top Nigerian polytechnics and universities with the best entrepreneurial pitches/ideas shall be awarded as follows: first place – N150m; second place – N120m; third place – N100m; fourth place – N80m; and fifth place – N50m.”

The apex bank explained that innovation and maintenance are important for business growth and development. Thus, start up’s and already existing businesses owned by graduates of polytechnics and universities in areas such as agriculture, information technology, creative industry and science. will be funded by these scheme.

Business sectors for the development of the scheme such as the agribusiness sector, Consists on production processes and logistic which are important for the success of the project. The creative industry will in creative industry would include entertainment, artwork, publishing, culinary/event management, fashion, photography .

On the other hand the science and IT business category will consist of application/software development, business process outsourcing, robotics and medical innovation, robotics, ticketing systems, traffic systems and renewable energy respectively.

It must be noted that according to the CBN priority would be given to business with high prospective to improve export earnings and skyrocket employment rate. Also the interest  at which these grants would be disbursed was quoted at 5% per annum and 9% after application for the grant, this figures would take effect from March 1 2022