The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele, has launched the Youth Innovative Entrepreneurship Development Programme (YIED-P), an initiative designed to unlock the ingenuity and resourcefulness of youths to drive the economy.
Under the new pilot scheme, about 1,000 youths would be targeted and one million direct jobs in productive activities would be created within the next four years with special credit line of up to N3 million made available for each eligible youth.
Emefiele said the scheme, which is open to youths ,who are either serving in the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) or those not more than five years post-NYSC service, will fix the problem of inadequate finance which is often encountered by business start-ups.
Recipients who utilise the funds properly could be encouraged to migrate to the other CBN interventions where they could be given more funds to grow their businesses, he added.
He said collateral requirements would be made “very simple” to include academic and NYSC certificates, third party guarantees and other movable assets in order to expedite this programme.
According to the CBN governor, “the programme will be an equal opportunity programme across gender and geo-political zones.
Together with our partners, we have developed a robust operational framework that will deliver a bias-free pre-qualification and selection process. We have also created a portal to streamline the application process and ease back-end processes.”
Emefiele said: “Demographically, there is no better segment of the Nigerian population than the youths to propel us to our much-needed economic recovery. Nigerian youths are a flowing spring of talent mix, and their innate potentials hold a promise of unequalled productivity if properly harnessed.”
He said the programme had become inevitable to ensure that the CBN not only focused on price and monetary stability, but also job creation and economic growth.
He urged prospective beneficiaries to make judicious use of the loans granted to grow their businesses to actualise their dreams and ensure that the noble objectives of the programme are realised.
Source: ThisDay
