The ARUA Centre of Excellence for Unemployment and Skills Development (ARUA-COE), University of Lagos, has presented the various research outputs of its researchers in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and South Africa; and the impacts of its activities in the respective countries.
The one-day Grant Close-Out Workshop organised by the Centre, which took place at the Bank of Industry/UNILAG Co-Working & Incubation Hub, Akoka Campus of the 60-year-old institution, offered the platform to focus on the causes, nature and solutions to youth unemployment on the African continent.
The ARUA Centre of Excellence for Unemployment and Skills Development (ARUA, CoE-USD) at the University of Lagos is saddled with the primary objective of tackling the challenges of youth unemployment, using a stakeholder network approach which involves academic and non-academic institutions with the shared vision of developing integrated approaches to maximise youth employment opportunities in Africa.
Its recently concluded project was funded with grants it won from the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) in 2019. Welcoming participants to the workshop, the Director of the Centre, Prof Sunday Adebisi, described the workshop as the culmination of a three-year journey, which is being funded through a UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) grant, which he stated had yielded immense dividends.
“The UKRI grant, which we used to kick-start our research, started in September 2019. It was used to establish our Centre and to finance our project, titled: “Partnership, Research and Ca- pacity Building for Youth Unemployment Solutions in Africa (PRAC-4-YUSA).”
“Within the one year of operations, we got the supportive attention of the Nigerian President; and from our grants, we have hosted three conferences and three Youth Business and Innovation Competitions (YoBIC) in Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa.
We believe that if the problem of youth employment is solved, Africa will become globally competitive; and we are here today to tell you how far we have come with that,” he said. The Vice-Chancellor, Prof Folasade Ogunsola, who led the management team of the university to the workshop, lauded the Centre and the impact it is already making in the continent.
She said: “I am proud to be here to share the results of this Centre with the world. I am also delighted to say that the outcomes of the work done here typify the great solutions that can ensue from South-South collaborations, if we take it more seriously. “It is becoming clearer that as knowledge generation accelerates, Town and Gown must work more closely together for the advancement of the society that we seek to serve.
There can be no development when the ivory towers are divorced from the market for which they produce manpower.” Some dons from the University of Nairobi (Kenya), Prof Jackson Maalu; Prof Kesh Govinder (University of KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa), and Dr. Priscilla Baffour from the University of Ghana, presented reports on the youth unemployment situation in their respective countries, based on their participation in the research project.
The common threads in their findings, include the incidence of high youth unemployment on the continent, a plethora of interventionist programmes by the government that hardly address the problem, and the immense potentials that exist among the youths for building successful enterprises.
Meanwhile, Prof Tony Bailetti from Carleton University, Canada, in his virtual presentation at the workshop, among other things, noted that good governance and the confidence of African youths in themselves were key to the emergence and flourishing of youth enterprises in Africa.
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