YouWIN is failing, says ActionAid

Category: Business Published on Thursday, 12 March 2015 05:01 Written by Abbas Jimoh.
The Youth Enterprise with Innovation in Nigeria (YouWIN) launched on October 11, 2011 by President Goodluck Jonathan is failing because it is not connecting with existing pro-employment plans and projects, but high-political influence, the ActionAid Nigeria said in a report.
Deputy Country Director Ifeoma Charles-Monwuba and Governance Coordinator Esther Agbon presented the report titled “YouWIN performance and impact study report” at a validation meeting yesterday in Abuja.
Lead Consultant of the Man-hour Consulting Associates and Citizens for Justice, Employment and Transparency (C-JET), Victor Anyanwu, who read the report, said the existence and implementation of the programme seem to have drawn largely from the presence of high-political influence of the Finance Ministry and that had the programme been subjected to normal cost-benefits and due process evaluation, it may not have been accorded the prominence and priority witnessed.
He noted that the result of the programme’s third and final edition of 1,500 awardees was announced in September 2014, while the awardees from the two previous editions have commenced operations and are employing various numbers of workers in their businesses.
He however regretted that monitoring of programme implementation has been restricted to only the organizations approved by the implementing Ministry and that it has not been easy for an independent monitor to access the awardees and their business places.
He said 60 awardees enterprises were targeted for assessment with 54 successfully contacted across the six geo-political zones and their completed questionnaires used for the study.
“The awardees were not restricted to or focused on any preferred sector of the economy, such that over 25 percent, about 35 percent and 14.8 percent respectively, are into services, agriculture and pseudo-manufacturing (which included sachet water packaging); one awardee ventured into the highly needed energy services. The about 2, 390 currently active awardees of the first and second Youwin editions engage an average of 10 workers per business, while the estimated best performance of the entire 3,900 awardees will be the creation of 40,108 jobs. This figure will fall very short of the 80,000-110,000 jobs targeted by government, even without giving consideration for the critical issue of job quality.
“Again, most of the awardees are facing the challenge of inadequate power supply and additional funding for their sustenance and continuing business expansion, and accordingly express need for additional support. At Nigeria’s current population of about 177million, at least 54 percent of the youth in the 15-44years bracket of an 80 million labour force amounts to 43.2million unemployed youth; and it is against this number that Youwin can at best offer 40,108 jobs (still very short of the insignificant 80,000-110,000 programme target),” he said.
He therefore suggested that the government should quickly institute a battery of both fiscal and monetary instruments to revive the economy and spin off millions of sustainable jobs, and must also invent a sustainable low-interest regime for inclusive entrepreneurial activities to thrive, far and beyond Youwin type of restricted grant among others.The Youth Enterprise with Innovation in Nigeria (YouWIN) launched on October 11, 2011 by President Goodluck Jonathan is failing because it is not connecting with existing pro-employment plans and projects, but high-political influence, the ActionAid Nigeria said in a report.
Deputy Country Director Ifeoma Charles-Monwuba and Governance Coordinator Esther Agbon presented the report titled “YouWIN performance and impact study report” at a validation meeting yesterday in Abuja.
Lead Consultant of the Man-hour Consulting Associates and Citizens for Justice, Employment and Transparency (C-JET), Victor Anyanwu, who read the report, said the existence and implementation of the programme seem to have drawn largely from the presence of high-political influence of the Finance Ministry and that had the programme been subjected to normal cost-benefits and due process evaluation, it may not have been accorded the prominence and priority witnessed.
He noted that the result of the programme’s third and final edition of 1,500 awardees was announced in September 2014, while the awardees from the two previous editions have commenced operations and are employing various numbers of workers in their businesses.
He however regretted that monitoring of programme implementation has been restricted to only the organizations approved by the implementing Ministry and that it has not been easy for an independent monitor to access the awardees and their business places.
He said 60 awardees enterprises were targeted for assessment with 54 successfully contacted across the six geo-political zones and their completed questionnaires used for the study.
“The awardees were not restricted to or focused on any preferred sector of the economy, such that over 25 percent, about 35 percent and 14.8 percent respectively, are into services, agriculture and pseudo-manufacturing (which included sachet water packaging); one awardee ventured into the highly needed energy services. The about 2, 390 currently active awardees of the first and second Youwin editions engage an average of 10 workers per business, while the estimated best performance of the entire 3,900 awardees will be the creation of 40,108 jobs. This figure will fall very short of the 80,000-110,000 jobs targeted by government, even without giving consideration for the critical issue of job quality.
“Again, most of the awardees are facing the challenge of inadequate power supply and additional funding for their sustenance and continuing business expansion, and accordingly express need for additional support. At Nigeria’s current population of about 177million, at least 54 percent of the youth in the 15-44years bracket of an 80 million labour force amounts to 43.2million unemployed youth; and it is against this number that Youwin can at best offer 40,108 jobs (still very short of the insignificant 80,000-110,000 programme target),” he said.
He therefore suggested that the government should quickly institute a battery of both fiscal and monetary instruments to revive the economy and spin off millions of sustainable jobs, and must also invent a sustainable low-interest regime for inclusive entrepreneurial activities to thrive, far and beyond Youwin type of restricted grant among others.

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So cool

GEJ till 2019!!!

Who has time to read this encyclopedia?

Beneficaries of youwin defending jonathan programme
Whosoever wrote or sponsored this article should bow his head with shame

Yowin is working
Jonathan is working

GEJ till 2019

Bloomyloo:
Who has time to read this encyclopedia?

people who wejt to school and take education seriously unlike a few without certificates

I dont expect anything more from the 40,000 beneficiaries of YouWin. two friends are also awardees. my only wish is if that 30, 000,000 unenployed youths would also have reasons to celebrate Transformation. I also wish that the winners do not see their success a reason for 90% to be left in the cold. this is the point action aid tried to make - they sould have conceded some kudos for govt though.

Please any robot in d house should summarize dis long boring epistle. #yawn#

Thanks to Jonathan I can't do my importing buz cos 1 dollar Is now 240 naira

A federal Government has no business giving grants to individuals as a form of employment benefit because it can never go round and be enough.

Ask yourself how many Youwin winners are out there? Probably 3000 to 10,000 or so. Let's even say on the high side, they are able to employ 9 people each. That's 27,000 to 90,000 new employment opportunities in 4 years by the FG.

We need to also look at the quality of the job offers created by YOUWIN businesses. We need to understand that no single person will start a SME biz and start offering their employees 120k as entry salaries except you want to pack up after 6 months. Most would run on a lean budget and I can guarantee that the average employee salary won't be above 20k (Twenty thousand naira). Is that what you call gainful employment?

Measure this against the number of graduates that go for NYSC yearly alone. Atleast each state recieves 1500 corp members per batch. That's 4500 corpers in each state per year.


4500× 36=162,000 graduates just in a year.

162,000×5 years of Jonathan= About 1 million graduates.

This is just the educated ones. I.e Nigerians that went to an higher institution. What of those who stopped at high school or those who never even attended a school but learnt a trade. 20 to 30 million unemployed youth?

Just deduct the number of Youwin jobs from the number of unemployed youths and you would realise YOUWIN does not even solve 0.01 per cent of the problems we have.


A sensible government would instead of the wasteful ways of doing things, provide the enabling environment for the economy to thrive and absorb the pressure of youth unemployment. For example,

1. Using youths for massive civil works.
2. Guaranteeing access to loans which we all know is the biggest problem facing most startups.
3. Funding Agricultural programs instead of the normal fertiliser distribution alone. I can't go and just collect fertiliser when I don't have a land to farm on or the crops to plant. Also the Land tenure system we use archaic and needs to be reviewed.
4. Enable security of lives and property. When investors know their investment is guaranteed and secured they would invest more. More reason the Boko Haram issue should never have been allowed to fester and left unattended to for long. The general consensus worldwide is that Nigeria is not safe and no sane person would invest in such environment.
5. Revive hailing industries by giving tax brakes to companies who employ more youths.
6. Companies like NITEL, textile industries, AJAOKUTA steel mills which guarantee the instant employement of millions should be either revived or sold transparently to companies who can manage them.
7. Ban Imports on goods or raise the import duties on such goods that can be made in Nigeria. Nothing stops us from banning tomato paste, toothpicks, diary products imports and so on. These are where the jobs are. YALE, CHIVITA , FUMMAN, BAGCO all benefitted from Obasanjo's ban of biscuits, packaged fruit juice and polythene leather sacks/bags imports. They currently employ people in their thousands and are daily growing. A visit to Papa Ajao to see what Chivita has turned to in just less than 10years would tell you a story.

It's not rocket science to create employment and govern a country. All these YOUWIN are palliatives that would fail. It's not about bad prophesies or badluck. It's simple economics. Maybe you guys should ponder on this salient fact. 87% of all startups fail and pack up within their first 1 to 3 year of existence.

How many YOUWIN businesses would still be functioning after 5 years?


And if they wanted to insist on the YOUWIN model. I guess they fancy the name alot. Just use the funds ammassed to gurantee and pay the interest incurred on such loans for a specified period of time if any Nigerian youth under the programme access loans from a commercial bank or SMEDAN. I can assure you more than 1 million would benefit that way and you would have touched more unemployed youths.

YOUWIN has failed in its objectives. No doubt about it.

GEJ till 2019!

YOUWIN was never stated as the pole program for reducing employment. It is just one of the ballparks to stimulate economic activity which will also create jobs and bring more people from informal sector into the tax net. sure p program Is more defined for reducing employment using massive civil works projects.
on loans for spuring large scale employment generation, I'm sure you aware of schemes under BOI and BOA and the newly launched and we'll acclaimed Cbn Sme loan funds, recently lunched manufacturing facilities for smes, Sme Venture Capital funds etc etc

onegig:
A federal Government has no business giving grants to individuals as a form of employment benefit because it can never go round and be enough.

Ask yourself how many Youwin winners are out there? Probably 3000 to 10,000 or so. Let's even say on the high side, they are able to employ 9 people each. That's 27,000 to 90,000 new employment opportunities in 4 years by the FG.

We need to also look at the quality of the job offers created by YOUWIN businesses. We need to understand that no single person will start a SME biz and start offering their employees 120k as entry salaries except you want to pack up after 6 months. Most would run on a lean budget and I can guarantee that the average employee salary won't be above 20k (Twenty thousand naira). Is that what you call gainful employment?

Measure this against the number of graduates that go for NYSC yearly alone. Atleast each state recieves 1500 corp members per batch. That's 4500 corpers in each state per year.


4500× 36=162,000 graduates just in a year.

162,000×5 years of Jonathan= About 1 million graduates.

This is just the educated ones. I.e Nigerians that went to an higher institution. What of those who stopped at high school or those who never even attended a school but learnt a trade. 20 to 30 million unemployed youth?

Just deduct the number of Youwin jobs from the number of unemployed youths and you would realise YOUWIN does not even solve 0.01 per cent of the problems we have.


A sensible government would instead of the wasteful ways of doing things, provide the enabling environment for the economy to thrive and absorb the pressure of youth unemployment. For example,

1. Using youths for massive civil works.
2. Guaranteeing access to loans which we all know is the biggest problem facing most startups.
3. Funding Agricultural programs instead of the normal fertiliser distribution alone. I can't go and just collect fertiliser when I don't have a land to farm on or the crops to plant. Also the Land tenure system we use archaic and needs to be reviewed.
4. Enable security of lives and property. When investors know their investment is guaranteed and secured they would invest more. More reason the Boko Haram issue should never have been allowed to fester and left unattended to for long. The general consensus worldwide is that Nigeria is not safe and no sane person would invest in such environment.
5. Revive hailing industries by giving tax brakes to companies who employ more youths.
6. Companies like NITEL, textile industries, AJAOKUTA steel mills which guarantee the instant employement of millions should be either revived or sold transparently to companies who can manage them.
7. Ban Imports on goods or raise the import duties on such goods that can be made in Nigeria. Nothing stops us from banning tomato paste, toothpicks, diary products imports and so on. These are where the jobs are. YALE, CHIVITA , FUMMAN, BAGCO all benefitted from Obasanjo's ban of biscuits, packaged fruit juice and polythene leather sacks/bags imports. They currently employ people in their thousands and are daily growing. A visit to Papa Ajao to see what Chivita has turned to in just less than 10years would tell you a story.

It's not rocket science to create employment and govern a country. All these YOUWIN are palliatives that would fail. It's not about bad prophesies or badluck. It's simple economics. Maybe you guys should ponder on this salient fact. 87% of all startups fail and pack up within their first 1 to 3 year of existence.

How many YOUWIN businesses would still be functioning after 5 years?


And if they wanted to insist on the YOUWIN model. I guess they fancy the name alot. Just use the funds ammassed to gurantee and pay the interest incurred on such loans for a specified period of time if any Nigerian youth under the programme access loans from a commercial bank or SMEDAN. I can assure you more than 1 million would benefit that way and you would have touched more unemployed youths.

YOUWIN has failed in its objectives. No doubt about it.

sholatech:
YOUWIN was never stated as the pole program for reducing employment. It is just one of the ballparks to stimulate economic activity which will also create jobs and bring more people from informal sector into the tax net. sure p program Is more defined for reducing employment using massive civil works projects.
on loans for spuring large scale employment generation, I'm sure you aware of schemes under BOI and BOA and the newly launched and we'll acclaimed Cbn Sme loan funds, recently lunched manufacturing facilities for smes, Sme Venture Capital funds etc etc

The government has been going on about how YOUWIN was the alpha and omega to solving youth unemployment in Nigeria. That's their main campaign front and Poster child on youth employment. You can't deny that fact.

We have always had all those. BOI's SME loans, PTF workers back then, Smedan loans, BOA revolving agric loans and stuff etc. All those are palliatives that whither imediately the administration that set it up leaves office. What has been their impact since? If they had worked in the past we won't be here. You don't want me to even start a discuss on the difficulty in accessing all those loans you listed and even their reach pales into Insignificance when you consider the challenges we are facing.

Please don't even mention SURE-P here. I guess wearing green reflective vests along Ife-Ibadan expressway cutting grass with cutlasses is employment to you. Or sitting at 7up bustop by old toll gate along Lagos-Ibadan expressway wearing black on black by graduates who paid various thousands of naira to sit under the Oak tree is gainful employment to you.

When I say massive civil works, I mean road construction, bridges, new public schools. Civil works that add to your cv. You earn a decent salary and gain experience. The only viable Sure P programme that has shown appreciable results is that on health workers and improving access to primary health facilities.

Invest in infrastructures and develop concrete plans that are long lasting not all these palliatives. If Sugar import is banned or import tax increased for example and Dangote or BUA are helped to increase their local production of such items thereby employing more workers. if Jonathan should leave today, they won't sack those employees because the administration is not in power anymore. Most jobs created by these palliatives don't have job security.

There are 3 basic component of a good job.

There is job security
It is qualitative
There is career progression.

Just check all you listed there and see if 10% of them have these characteristics.

How many months are Sure P graduate interns owed? Go ask, more than 5 months. Make I even dey sleep for house better and do nothing is better.

Story story....STORY!