A UK agency, Department For International Development (DFID), in collaboration with the Osun state government is set to empower about 5,000 small scale business women and youth in the state.
This empowerment plan was made known at the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between both parties, at the governor’s office in Osogbo, the capital of the state.
The leader of the team, David Joyner, said the scheme under the Growth and Empowerment in States (GEMS) arm of the DFID is aimed at providing jobs, creating wealth and in turn eradicating poverty.
He says the programme will also facilitate better connection between small and medium enterprises.
To achieve this, he said the public sectors’ Ministry of Industry and Ministry of Agriculture would be in full partnership.
Osun State Governor, Rauf Aregbesola, added that the collaboration between the state and the subsidiary agency of DFID is a veritable framework for development of small scale business enterprises to create wealth and banish poverty in the state.
According to him, “it is not for lack of opportunities that we are poor, but our inability to creatively engage our people”.
He therefore asserted that human development was what Nigeria must do to help its people out of the current economic recession.
The scheme is targeted towards empowering soap makers, livestock rearers, local plantain chip makers and traditional mat weavers among others.