Reinforcing Foundations: A path to Strengthen Nigeria’s Employment Interventions

Over the last 3 years, I have worked on initiatives that seek to increase youth employment in Nigeria. In this article, I make an effort to juxtapose the current government archetype for creating work opportunities (employment) for youths in Nigeria against other models that appear to be the more innovative and sustainable. I have outlined some themes that define the current model in Nigeria and suggested improvements to the status quo that could lead to better employment and social outcomes for the Nigerian youth.

Program design: to begin with, government interventions in creating work opportunities for youth appear to exclude the beneficiaries – the youth, from the design process. The downside of this approach is the potential to ‘misplace priorities’ on what important parameters like: ‘good jobs’, ‘decent wages’, 'growth trajectories’ are in the Nigerian context. More worrisome, is the fact that sometimes, the teams that design these may be disconnected from the ‘on the ground reality’. Although, one might argue that these plans are designed by experts and incorporate ‘best practice’ from countries with low employment rates; these plans often do not reflect the adoption of design thinking principles nor optimize for positive life outcomes of participants (youths) who graduate from programs. For instance, the UN’s Generation Unlimited (read more here) involves youths in the strategic analysis and design process for national initiatives. That way, the voice and aspirations of youth are captured in program design. Furthermore, interventions at the national level, appear ‘empathy lite’ often excluding vulnerable groups like persons living with disabilities (PLWDs), orphans and widows, HIV & AIDS patients – among others. The MissingBillion (read more here) – an initiative to support the employment and social welfare needs of the world’s > 1 billion PLWDs is designed to create a positive experience for these persons at every stage of the work process. What's more – the coordination office even has recruitment targets inclusive of PLWDs!!! It would be a big step forward to see government affiliated programs speak to the needs of all Nigerians – regardless of their health status or abilities.

Job seeker (Supply side) emphasis: government interventions have a strong emphasis on large supply side (job seekers) targets with limited emphasis on the skill needs of employers (demand side). Usually, the programs aim to train and upskill workers; with little thought for what happens to beneficiaries after exiting such training. For instance, N – Power, started in 2016, is a two-year program designed to employ graduates and non – graduates aged between 18 – 35 years in six focal sectors: N-Teach, N-Health, N-Agro, N-Build, N-Creative and N-Tech and; pay stipends ranging from ?20,000 – ?40,000. Disputedly successful, the initiative of the current Nigerian government has > 500,000 beneficiaries and millions more in the pipeline. Unfortunately, the program did not clearly define the synergies with the private sector and academia that would ensure that beneficiaries acquire skills that are useful and would ensure their continued employment, upon exit from N - Power. This resulted in ~ 500,000 N – Power graduates who received training, were paid for 2 years by the government and now struggle to remain gainfully employed. While the employment targets of the initiative are laudable, the program should have considered a realistic cadence for onboarding, training, retaining and exiting (including comprehensive support) of beneficiaries from the Batches (groups of N-Power beneficiaries). Furthermore, in a country with repeated budget deficit cycles, and which has exited two (2) recessions back-to-back, a more sustainable model for remunerating beneficiaries is required. The program designers should find a sustainable way to deploy the ~ ?300 – ?400 billion spent annually on stipends and program ancillaries!

More so, the supply interventions do not clearly articulate what spectrum of job seekers / youths they seek to address. I observed that the designers of these interventions often use the terms ‘undergraduate’, ‘graduate’, and ‘unemployed’. Perhaps an expansion of archetypes and subgroups which the broad categories fall into would be helpful. For instance - artisans and technicians-, blue- and white-collar jobs, remote and urban jobs, tech savvy and non tech savvy etc. A more richly articulated definition of beneficiaries would promote innovation and customization of approaches for each target group – resulting in higher employment figures. Fortunately, the P – YES project seeks to address some of these inefficiencies as it creates jobs in agriculture, catering, fashion design et al.? Also, the recently launched Nigeria Jubilee Fellow Program has a focus on graduates without work (internship or apprenticeship) experience. I am excited about the prospects of the 20,000 beneficiaries exiting the program by the end of 2022.

Absence of central planning or coordination for initiatives: the last 2 political administrations did not have a central unit to coordinate employment or job creation interventions (as seen in the Table 1 below). The downside of this approach is the discontinuity in target attainment, distorted ownership and responsibility for achieving targets, wasted resources in procurement and program execution. In addition, there are disconnects between several interventions and the economic direction for the nation – as the sectors that seem to have employment generation capacity often do not meet employment targets. I imagine the logic for government focus on a sector is either the contribution of resources to GDP (think of cocoa), national security and asset ownership (think of the oil refineries), employment/social benefits (think of rice growing and other labor-intensive activities). Where employment planning is centrally coordinated – it’s easier to identify priority sectors in the national plan (where it exists), define sectors with medium to large employment potential (both now and in the near future), identify public and private sector needs in attaining employment targets, providing support to partners and beneficiaries through the lifetime of the project. Interestingly, a cursory look at private sector big business projects like the Dangote Refinery, the BUA Sugar Plant et al, show the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor & his team accompanying business luminaries for site visits; while speaking on the strategic and economic benefits of these projects. Why don’t we see the Minister of Labor or the Minister of Trade and Industry or a government official from the ‘host state’ discuss the prospects of the projects and how the government could enable big business to meet its human resource needs (and conversely, the state to meet its employment targets)? As the American president Harry S. Truman said ‘the buck stops here’. We need a table to take ownership for employment initiatives and targets in Nigeria.

Table 1: Employment programs in Nigeria and coordinating offices

Apathy for 'experimentative' behavior and learning: the majority of interventions appear to have a certain structure: supply side (job seeker) emphasis, ambitious employment targets, absence of inter-agency collaboration, weak communication with stakeholders (especially Nigerians who finance these interventions through taxes) and an unwillingness to change approach for underperforming projects. Why are we, as a nation, afraid to try other models out?

Closely tied to this, is the preferred positive bias for ‘grass root empowerment’ projects or ‘pro – poor interventions’ that give monetary handouts (ranging from ?5000 – ?40,000) to people to go into business. While I understand the basic logic of this model, I believe a more systematic approach to improving the livelihoods and social mobility outcomes of Nigerians should be adopted. For a long time, I opposed this approach until I had a conversation with a ‘mai shayi’ {these are Paris café style tea and confectionery sellers – in less auspicious environments} in Lagos, sometime in late 2018. He explained that with a loan of ?5,000, he bought the basic tools of trade – a cooking pot, a kerosene cooking stove and tea ingredients (sugar, milk and a few loaves of bread etc). He leased the remaining items like the wooden benches from offices/homes nearby and started his business – charging ?100/?150 for a cup of tea (dependent on the customers preference). In less than 1 month, he grew a ?5,000 loan to over ?20,000. I found that to be both remarkable and inspiring! This is in part, thanks to government interventions like the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programme that give ‘cash handouts’ to unbanked and unskilled Nigerians – championed by individuals like Hajiya Maryam Uwais, His Excellency the Vice President ’Yemi Osinbajo and more recently, the Honourable Minister Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farouq. At the individual level, that makes sense. Unfortunately, when one zooms out to the national level, the numbers are grim. According to a report by Statista, Nigeria’s youth (those who fall within 15 - 24 years) unemployment rate is estimated at 20%. Nigeria’s total population growth rate is estimated to be 3.8%, with more than 60% of its over 200 million population being below age 35. Although it is difficult to get accurate data, 2018 estimates suggest that Nigeria is experiencing a youth bulge, having over 100 million people in the youth category (between 0 – 24 years) which is expected to double by 2050. More disturbing is the NBS 2019 report which highlights that 40% of the total population, or almost 83 million people, live below the country’s poverty line of 137,430 naira ($381.75) per year. If the National Treasury disburses ?5000 to 40 million Nigerians, that amounts to ?2 trillion per month (or ?24 trillion per annum). I don’t know how long or how much it would take to lift these individuals out of poverty – but it’s definitely not by giving ?5000 to every Nigerian living in poverty. We must not romanticize ?5,000 handouts. We need a better thought out and better designed national experiment that can lead to improved life outcomes for all Nigerians.

Poor communication of successes: there are several laudable government employment interventions. Unfortunately, there’s a glaring gap between the communication of program success (excluding during election campaign seasons) and Nigerians’ awareness. Two issues might be responsible for this. To begin with, and as mentioned earlier, there’s a lack of ownership of the comprehensive results of employment interventions by the various coordinating bodies. Some MDAs which could take ownership include the Ministry of Labor, the Ministry of Communications, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the National Orientation Agency (NOA), the Ease of Doing Business Office – amongst others. Unfortunately, the reporting of the key performance indicators on employment is a wild snake without a charmer – in the Nigerian social circus. Hence, the poor communication of each unique programs’ targets, challenges and successes. In addition, the communications MDAs of the government are experiencing a capacity constraint – in both quality and quantity of personnel. We often see utter disregard and disrespect for the honor of Nigerians in the way certain appointees of government engage with labor and the private sector – and how they communicate the status of interventions. No stakeholder can solve the issue of unemployment alone, hence, the need for continued mutual collaboration, respect, equity, fairness and justice.

Lest I forget, a more recent trend is the trumpeting of impact numbers (e.g. number of beneficiaries trained or employed) by several interventions, that are unsubstantiated. The persons responsible for churning this data should include their definitions (of parameters/metrics), evidence utilized, the methods of data collection and analysis and limitations. This will put greater confidence in the statistics (‘millions employed’, ‘millions pulled out of poverty’, ‘lives transformed’) reeled out.

Overall, these interventions are laudable as they seek to maximize the social good (number of youths identified, trained and connected to employment); however, their current structures leave lots to be desired. Briefly outlined is a road map to improve them:

1. ? ? ? Inclusion of youths in program design: who have an understanding of the local reality (in Nigerian lingo ‘pesin wey sabi street’ or ‘pesin wey don see life’) and who have the technical expertise to address change. Focus groups should adopt design thinking principles and include the vulnerable, marginalized and PLWDS. The ‘experts’ employed to work on teams, should be persons who are empathetic to the ordeal of the Nigerian youth in securing employment and creating dignified lives.

2. ? ? ? Balanced program design: to include practical synergies between the demand side (employers) and the supply side (job seeking youth). As a nation, the government and international partners need to create effective pathways for progress – for beneficiaries of training & employment programs. This means that large, medium and small-scale employers must be encouraged to recruit and retain participants in employment and social improvement programs.

3. ? ? ? Centralize employment management and monitoring: all employment initiatives should be monitored by the same office or secretariat. This comes with several benefits including the conservation of resources, single responsibility for program performance, clearer communication pathways for inter – ministerial collaboration, better responsiveness to program challenges amongst others. The challenge with this approach is the nuance of balancing interests in a democratic state (or autonomous organization) – as different MDAs (or organizations) want to own interventions for unique reasons like political visibility, revenue allocation, stakeholder engagement, donor support, standardized reporting methodologies etc. While these aims are not evil in themselves, we need a nationally coordinated effort to solve a nationally relevant challenge. National interventions can take a leaf from sub nationals in creating a ‘war room’ or PMO (like EdoJobs and LSETF) which take ownership for state employment initiatives and foster trust between other players in the ecosystem.

4. ? ? ? Increase strategic experimentation: such that there’s a balance of projects that affect the full continuum of youths: skilled, semi – skilled, unskilled, PLWDs, internally displaced persons (IDPs) et al. In addition, more demand side interventions (which increase the capacity of businesses/employers to hire more workers) and ‘enabling’ projects (which increase the ease of doing business) should be initiated. This includes interventions that promote access to the internet, improve financial access and strengthen business management skills of entrepreneurs – amongst others.

5. ? ? ? Communicate the success: of existing and concluded employability projects. The phrase ‘loud it’ meaning, in Nigerian lingo, ‘to make something known’ is apt. An easy first step would be a round table on employment initiatives in Nigeria – that share challenges and success periodically. This also puts the burden of care on M&E teams, program officers and leaders to ensure that reporting is both accurate and timely. We should not publicize lies to placate Nigerians (and donors) or to win elections. Windbaggery is not an asset for public officials.

While the article is no way exhaustive, possesses limitations and takes a limited timeframe of one-decade, further critique of the same and the interventions are welcome. The efforts of the current administration in reducing unemployment have had some positive impacts – and I encourage the MDAs involved to keep up the good work. We must collectively work towards giving the Nigerian youth a fighting chance and a hope for social mobility. Being Nigerian is not a curse; so, we must benefit from the blessings.

*** In my next article, I would evaluate the sustainability (both financial and business model) of the Nigerian employment approach. ***