The African Development Bank (AfDB) says it has approved $100 million for the establishment of the Nigerian Youth Entrepreneurship Investment Bank.
Dr Akinwumi Adesina, President and Chairman, Board of Directors, AfDB, said this in Abuja on Friday, when he delivered the 14th Convocation Lecture of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN).
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the theme of the lecture is: “Advancing Africa’s Positioning within Global Development and Geographical Dynamics.”
Adesina said the move was to liberate the Nigerian youth financially and provide technical assistance, business development services, equity, quasi-equity and debt financing for businesses of young people across Africa.
“The key to solving unemployment is entrepreneurship. Africa is today experiencing an entrepreneurship boom, with 22 per cent of its working age population starting a business, the highest rate in the world according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, 2020.
“The leading areas of focus for entrepreneurship are in the sectors of agriculture, retail, services and technology.
“The future is very bright for innovative young entrepreneurs in Africa. This is driven by the rapid expansion of the digital economy which will add $180 billion to Africa’s GDP by 2050, and $712 billion by 2050.
“Africa’s startup ecosystem is taking advantage of the digital economy with more than 600 active startup hubs on the continent.
“Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and Egypt have become centres of tech innovations, driven by youth entrepreneurs in health tech, Agric-tech and e-commerce,” he said.
According to Adesina, the AfDB marshalled out a robust financial development plan for Africa, because the global financial system has been unable to effectively address the challenges facing Africa.
Adesina listed the challenges to include matters of debt, climate change and access to greater financing.
“In addition, the AfDB and its partners approved $614 million for the Investment in Digital and Creative Enterprises programme to support access to financing for small and medium sized businesses in the creative and digital industries.
“It is a strong strategic partnership which includes the AfDB, the Agence Francaise de Developpment, the Islamic Development Bank and the Bank of Industry.
“The programme plans to add $6.4 billion to the Nigerian economy and create over six million jobs.”
The AfDB said in spite of the gains made over time, the majority of Africa’s youth still lag behind on education.
“For the sake of comparison let’s look at Japan and Africa; while 98.9 per cent of the youth in Japan have completed a secondary education, only 43 per cent of the youth in Africa completed secondary school education.
“In terms of higher education, the gap is stark; while 60 per cent of the youth in Japan are pursuing higher education, only 10 per cent of Africa’s youth enrolled in higher education.
“Among those pursuing higher education, African youth are less enrolled in educational fields that are dominating the world.
“While 30 per cent of Japanese youth in universities pursue science, technology, engineering and mathematics, less than 25 per cent of students in sub-Saharan Africa are in these fields.
“This puts Africa behind in terms of its preparedness for the fourth industrial revolution, especially in fields such as artificial intelligence, robotics, automation and cloud computing, which are revolutionising the world,” Adesina added.
He said the bank was already working with the African Union to establish a $300 million African Education, Science and Technology Innovation Fund, to address the education gap.
Adesina, who lamented that Africa was the only economy in the world without a buffer in case of emergency, urged its leaders to invest heavily in energy, promote development of mineral resources and support technology advancement.
Earlier, Chairman of the occasion, Prof. Attahiru Jega, a former INEC Chairman, said Adesina had emboldened Africans to understand the efforts that have gone into repositioning the continent.
Jega appreciated the role AfDB had played in ensuring that Africa explored and benefited from its potential, and pursued the path of self sustaining development.
He described Adesina as Nigeria’s ambassador to the international community, as everything said in his lecture pointed to efforts to ensure a free Africa and pursue an independent course towards achieving its development.
The Vice Chancellor of NOUN, Prof. Olufemi Peters, said this year’s convention lecturer was carefully chosen to enable Nigerians to tap from his development experience.
Peters said Adesina’s experience had earned him many international awards, and the reason the university decided to confer on him an honorary doctorate degree of Doctor of Humane Letter.
