UNICEF, FG to make 20m Nigerians Richer by 2030

The Federal Government of Nigeria has revealed its plan to partner with the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) to empower 20 million Nigerian youths by 2030.

The initiative which was tagged: “Generation Unlimited”, is targeted at 20 million people between the ages of 10 and 24 out of the nation’s 65 million young people.

Peter Hawkins, the Country Representative of UNICEF in Nigeria, revealed this during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Sunday.

According to him, the initiative is also being replicated in many other countries with 1.8 billion young people targeted around the World.

Hawkins explained that the Generation Unlimited programmes were aimed at developing the capacity of young Nigerians to be better positioned as leaders of tomorrow.

He said that if the youths were not equipped with the right skills, especially in view of the ongoing digitisation of the world, they would be unable to bring value to the future of Nigeria.

Hawkins added that such initiatives would also help in turning the youth away from drugs or crime.

“Already, over the past year, we have been engaging with 450,000 young people through different initiatives around the country.

“There is a massive prospect in this country to engage young people. So in summary, Generation Unlimited is trying to help 20 million young people to achieve skills and jobs with the digital platforms being the main conduit for many of these jobs and skills.

“On Monday, Nigeria’s Vice President will inaugurate the Generation Unlimited Nigeria, this is a fantastic opportunity to demonstrate a vision for the young people of Nigeria and give them the opportunity to engage in what happens in Nigeria in the future.

“There are many initiatives at the moment currently ongoing, especially around skills development, education live skills learning.

“What we are trying to do at Generation Unlimited is to allow the platform of all of these to go to scale, using different initiatives to trigger off other initiatives to reach the 20 million that we want to reach in the next 10 years,” he said.