By Emmanuella Anokam
The Federal Government has inaugurated the Commodity and Export Department Young Professionals Programme (CED-YP) to spur competency and expertise in public administration.
Otunba Adeniyi Adebayo, Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, inaugurated the programme organised by the ministrys Commodity and Export Department.
He said it would serve as a continuous career development strategy to trigger speedy economic growth.
Adebayo explained that the programme would broaden the perspective of the young professionals and add to their skills and knowledge base, to keep pace with dynamism of public administration.
The initiative will also provide an avenue to link up with other international sponsored professional development programmes such as World Trade Organisation (WTO), UNICEF, New and Emerging Talent Initiative (NETI) and World Bank young professionals programmes, he said.
He underscored the importance of well trained and mentored youths in economic growth and development globally.
According to the minister, Nigeria and other African countries are facing some challenges in their efforts to achieve sustainable economic growth.
He said in spite of being resource rich countries, major macro-economic variables such as unemployment, balance of payment, exchange rate, balance of trade, GDP/debt ratio and inflation had not been favourable as expected.
Adebayo expressed confidence that the knowledge to be gained from the programme would assist in improvement of decision making and policy implementation, especially in this dynamic era of globalisation.
The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Dr Sanni Gwarzo, said the programme had been identified as a veritable platform to provide skills development, coaching and mentoring.
He said it would also provide networking opportunities to emerging leaders.
Globally, young professional programmes are used for human capital development, which is an essential component in nation building.
Skilled human capital has been pivotal and considered to be one of the fundamental solutions to challenges of economic growth and development, Gwarzo said.
According to him, it is the right platform of molding emerging professionals.
*We are looking forward to seeing the work plan going forward, as well as witnessing the exploits of this great plan, he said.
Gwarzo called on the young professionals to be committed, dedicated and to imbibe valuable partnership skills. (NAN)
Source: NAN News