Employment Creation & Social Empowerment

One of the ways to guarantee peace and security is to properly direct the energy of our youths to productive ventures through job creation. The “SIMPLE” Agenda is to create an enabling business environment in the state, such that can attract honest investors to take advantage of all our PPP initiatives. Thousands of jobs will be created through the following government activities:

  • An Edo State Employment Bureau (ESEB) shall be established. This bureau will be responsible for identifying the unemployed in the state and capturing them in a database that would include their qualifications. We will also aggressively source for job placements for them.
  • In the execution of the various programmes of the “SIMPLE” Agenda, job creation components and sustainability thereof will be the critical factor in measuring performance and success.
  • For the PPP industrial Schemes in each of the Senatorial Districts, it is reckoned that each of the clusters should be capable of accommodating up to 10 separate industrial firms and would give direct employment opportunities to well over 3,000 persons and another 10,000 persons indirectly, providing the raw materials, goods and services, across the state.
  • It is also planned to attract over 10,000 persons to the Farm Settlement, while at the same time, Youth Empowerment through Agricultural and Farmer’s Support Programme (YETA-FSP) will be established to support 500 youths from each of the 18 LGAs every year. The beneficiaries will receive intensive training on different agricultural programmes in established Agricultural Training Institutes and on completion of training they will be given start-up capital with other incentives to begin agro-businesses.
  • The Graduate Youth Entrepreneurial Scheme and other Micro-Credit Scheme will be redesigned and supported with matching grants from the state government and other financial development institutions such as the Bank of Industry, Bank of Agriculture, SMEDAN, etc to create additional jobs.
  • We understand and fully recognize the role of SMEs as the engine of any economy. In Edo, SMEs generate more than 80 per cent of jobs and contribute more than 20 per cent to local GDP growth. In addition to the empowerment scheme in the SIMPLE Agenda around skills acquisition, micro financing and other focus areas, our vision will be to make Edo State the best place for businesses to start and thrive. To do this we need to understand the characteristics of our small and medium sized businesses, what determines their success and what holds them back.

While we emphasize the up-skilling and building of human capacity talent, we shall improve all aspects of financing and access to finance by SMEs through deliberative actions and interventions.