The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has expressed its readiness to work with Ekiti State to achieve its human development agenda for the people by increasing the employability index of the youth.
UNDP’s Country Senior Innovation Adviser, William Tsuma, said this in Ado Ekiti during a working visit to the Governor’s Office.
The UNDP top official also commended the State Governor, Biodun Oyebanji, for launching a Maker Space in the state, in addition to being an Innovation Hub.
He said the UNDP will work to support the crystallisation of the idea behind such noble move.
Mr Tsuma said the various efforts of the government in agriculture, education, arts and culture, as well as the digital economy, have placed the state in the front as one in a hurry to develop.
He also commended Mr Oyebanji for creating an enabling environment for residents, especially the youth, to gain practical experience in the public sector.
This, he said, will enhance the nurturing of a new generation of well-equipped young people, and give them easy transition into the workplace with more wisdom and skill.
The visit came barely a week after Mr Oyebanji inaugurated the first Innovation Hub (Startup Garage) in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital.
“We are looking to borrow your brain and see how we leverage on some of the expertise, the knowledge, the good work that you’ve done here and export some of these ideas to other parts of this great nation. Sometimes, we are only as strong as our neighbours, everyone wants to understand what is going on in Ekiti, how can we learn from Ekiti.
“Mr Governor, one of the discussions we are having is ‘Ekiti to Nigeria’ because I know that the state is busy and you have a lot you have to offer the region and the sub-region. It is a lot of expertise and experience and work that you do, which our immediate neighbours and beyond could benefit from. We are also looking at how we amplify some of the great work that you do around arts and culture,” Mr Tsuma explained.
He hid the need to innovate around the public sector to ensure integrated portfolio to achieve deliverables that the sector can offer.
In his remarks, Mr Oyebanji said that the establishment of Ekiti Knowledge Zone has provided a veritable platform for taking the state out of poverty by creating an ecosystem to address and drive innovations and technology, as well as increase the employability index of the people.
The governor affirmed the need for effective collaboration between the state’s Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Digital Economy to address the curriculum deficiency in the educational system right from the elementary school to the university.
He said this would help in furthering his administration’s determination to produce global citizens who will live in the shores of the state and still be relevant and useful all over the world.
Mr Oyebanji stressed the need for government to ensure that the knowledge of citizens is translated to prosperity in order to enable the state move forward to become the economic hub of the nation.
While affirming that youths cover more than 75 percent of the population who have practically helped to educate themselves in certain areas of their lives, he stressed the importance of building bridges and platforms for them that will allow them do better and achieve greater heights in their chosen careers and aspirations.
The governor also revealed plans by his administration to replicate the innovation hub (Startup Garage) across all the 16 local government areas of the state.
He thanked the UNDP for showing interest in Ekiti, adding that his government will continue to leverage on the capacity of its citizens to provide veritable leadership in the area of education, innovation and digital economy.
“A people, so educated and so informed should not be poor. So, our knowledge must translate to something. If we are knowledgeable and we are still the poverty capital of the country, then there is a question mark on that knowledge. That is why we are making so much effort to change the narratives,” Mr Oyebanji added.
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