On the surface such idea sounds meritable but a lot of factors point to the inevitable failure of the reactionary idea of YOUWIN.

YOUWIN jointly organised by the Ministries of Finance, Communication Technology and Youth development started receiving entries on new and existing business ideas from Nigerian youths not more than 40 years old.

The first round of entries closed on November 25, 2011 and training to commence from December 6th to December 20th. YOUWIn as a three revolving program is planned to consume N50 Billion and create 300,000 jobs.

Here are reasons why we feel YOUWIN may yet end up a collosal failure and waste of public funds that otherwise would have been used to stimulate the SME subsector.

1. Corruption: the hydra-headed enigma that has ensured the country continues to wallow in mediocrity, substandard and non-existent infrastructure and non-completion of vital projects. Programmes far greater than the YOUWIN initiative have been conducted in the past with the monies allocated growing wings meaning that nothing was achieved from those initiatives.

Nothing, in the form of transparency points to the fact that the YOUWIN initiative will be different from its predecessors of failed human empowerment programmes. For instance, corrupt officials handling the initiative may go ahead to connive with applicants to allocate ridiculuos sums of money to certain applicants whose ideas do not merit such amounts.

You cannot overlook such things and say they will not happen. Things worse than that has happened in the past. The apparent lack of organisation and known procedures for managing and disbursing the finances for the initiative bother us and indicates that financial impropreity will be the bane of this initiative. We stand to be corrected and proved wrong on this.

[b]2. Lack of Transparency in Processes[/b]: Almost in all aspects of the YOUWIN initiative there is apparent lack of transpareny in the way things are done. From the finances to the selection process very few actually understand how things are done and how money is to be used. The organisers of YOUWIN recently released names of succesful applicants to undergo first round of training. What criteria was used to select these applicants? Knowing how the Nigerian factor works how sure are Nigerians that 70% of these successful applicants are not relatives or cronies of the powers involved with YOUWIN who are there to get allocations of several millions whether their ideas are worth it or not,

http://nairabrains.com/2011/12/six-reasons-why-the-youwin-initiative-may-fail/

Mr Oga poster, You are enemies of change in this country, you are pessimistic and criticize without thinking.

Let me inform you that I was one of the successful applicant for the first stage and I knew no body there.
The whole process was transparent enough maybe you want it done in your room.

Instead of you to apply, you are here bad-mouthing an innovation.

You are entitled to your viewpoint. Note that while I do not wish any good idea meant for the good of Nigerians to fail we are merely pointing out challenges that may cause YOUWIN to end up like other programs. Running away from these challenges and looking the other way will not help us.

All the same I wish you goodluck. and don't conclude that everybody needs to apply to YOUWIN initiative.