Wolfgarten: German Govt Supporting Nigeria on Sustainable Development 

The Head of Programme of the Skills Development for Youth Employment Programme, implemented by the GIZ on behalf of the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development, Tobias Wolfgarten, speaks to Raheem Akingbolu on modalities being put in place to ensure the programme improves income and generates employment opportunities for Nigerian youth and young adults. Excerpts:

What are the key objectives of the SKYE project and how do you intend to achieve your goals in Nigeria?

Our main objective is to improve the empowerment perspectives of the Nigerian youth and to a large extent, we have achieved that. GIZ is an organisation owned by the Federal government and we implement development projects on behalf of the German government in about 120 countries and Nigeria is one of the most important ones. Therefore, we have a robust portfolio with many programs and projects and also a staff roster of about 650 people here on the ground. When I’m talking about development, I think it’s always important to say we are not building highways and bridges. That’s not the type of development we are focusing on.

Specifically, can you shed lights on the areas you are focusing?

We support the Nigerian government to achieve sustainable economic development; the sustainable development goals that have been agreed on in the United Nations. So, all our work that we do in different fields in the field of vocational training, private sector development, energy and agriculture are based on a bilateral agreement between the Nigerian and the German government. Representatives of the two countries meet on a regular basis and then agree on priorities that they want to work on. Then, we have one focus area which is very important; sustainable economic development, which includes vocational training and employment promotion. It also includes private sector development and the ultimate role of this is to improve employment opportunities in Nigeria. You know that in Nigeria, the unemployment and particularly youth unemployment is of serious concern to stakeholders. This is so because about 80% of the population are below 35, it’s a big problem. On the other hand, you also have businesses that look for qualified labor but they don’t find and that’s where we come in. Therefore, what do we do to tackle this problem? One is we improve the quality of vocational training that’s being done in Nigeria. We do that by developing new vocational training standards in collaboration with the private sector. We invite the chambers, the businesses and ask them, what do you need? What does an electrician have to do to be able to be successful in your company? What does a plumber have to do? What does a solar technician have to do? To achieve this, we invite the private sector so they can tell us the skills they need and we bring together the public and the private sectors.

You mean all these are currently ongoing?

Yes, we have piloted it. We have the chambers and we have the businesses on one side. We have the public sector with the National Board on Tertiary Education, NTE on the other side and they agree on occupational standards -a national occupational standard and we have tested this standard. Having piloted it, now since we are moving into our next phase, we can roll this out. And that’s also one reason why we reached out to THISDAY. Normally, GIZ is here for very long-term purposes on one topic. Besides, the project phases are normally five years, four years, three years. For us, our phase one in the skills development for youth and farming program is over now. It’s now time to look back and to evaluate what really went well, what are the activities, what are concepts that we can replicate and what are things that we should do again?

Is the German government the only partner on the project?

No, we also have co-funding from the European Union and from the Swiss government. Also, we work with others wherever our interests align.  GIZ has been in Nigeria since 1974. However, there was a small interruption in the upper track, yes, but apart from that, we have been here since 1974. And then, in a different intensity, but it tells you a lot about how we work. We want to be and remain a reliable partner. Partner that works also works on long term goals. And when it comes, for example, to reform the system of vocational training, of employment promotion, it needs time because you need to initiate a lot of changes, and you can’t do that in two years and sometimes, not in five years.

Can you be specific on the time frame?

Often, our programs are operational between 10 and 15 years and that’s something that’s very important. We do not want to create any dependencies on our program. We always want to work on structures. And when I say work on structures, I don’t necessarily mean physical structures, but it means we can give an input, and I’ll give some examples on that. All these notwithstanding, we are a guest in this country and the system should not depend on us. We are not paying or let me say when it comes to training, we are not paying trainees. I can renovate a building. I can buy some equipment. I can train trainers so they can do better what they are supposed to do. I can develop the standards, but then the government of the host country has to do some basic things. They have to provide the resources like the trainers, the buildings and others, so that they can run it in the future. One aspect in improving employment opportunities for youth is to improve the training quality by developing standards and this has different implications. If you develop a new standard, you need teaching and learning materials. You need to prepare the trainers. You also need to prepare the managers of training centers so that they create a conducive environment for the trainers to actually apply the new method. So, it’s a very holistic way of thinking. You also do organisational development, redefining structures and processes of organizations. With this, they can have a full grip on what they do and what their mandate is so that they can do it better. That’s basically what we do. When I use the word ‘you’ I’m referring to the government of the host country.

Now let’s look at the other aspects, especially in the area of youth employment

Yes, another aspect in improving employment is job matching. As I said, the unemployment rate of this country is so high and we have companies looking for labor in some sectors, like construction. The irony of this is that there are a lot of people being recruited from Cameroon, Benin and Togo. But why do they have to come if there are 200 million Nigerians that could also do a job? So, here is where we established several job centers. As I speak, there are two available in Benin, Edo State. We established five additional ones in rural Edo. We also established one pilot, one in Lagos and we will establish more. We’ll have one job center opening in two weeks in Plateau State. What happens in these job centers is that people looking for jobs can come, and the job counselor engages them to see how they could be trained.

The job counsellor will deal with the puzzle on how to guide young people to find the job that, first of all, makes them happy or aligns with their skills and their talents. Again, we also have training activities like, how do I write a CV? How do I improve my soft skills? We have also established something like an e-Learning platform that has been taken over by the partners. Succinctly speaking, sustainability is everything. You will find learning videos in our e-learning module, which has been produced by a nonprofit company in Berlin, together with filmmakers in Lagos. The idea here is to build the capacities. If our partners want to produce more of these videos, there are people here who know how to do it.

In this regard, where does sustainability come in?

Also, like this e-Learning system, we also factor in sustainability in a standard that does not consume a lot of running costs. For example, I handover an IT system to a partner, and they have to pay $10,000 in a year to run it. Our e-learning platform is $50 per year. We do it this way so that there are no excuses not to run it. Those are part of what these job centers do. They give advice, job facilitation, training and soft skills. How do I present in an interview? How do I solve conflict in a workplace? We also do career counseling activities with secondary schools and NGOs. Even government agencies, we counsel them to guide young people also into Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET). Vocational training is not always about masonry and plumbing. There are so many other things that job seekers can do.  We had a lot of activities on job opportunities for women in construction trades and others. For instance, there are about 150 trades in the construction sector.

How does the system work in a highly populated area like Lagos State?

That is a very good question, we intervene in Lagos by working with agencies and ministries. For instance, we work with Lagos State Employment Trust Fund, and also the Ministry for Budget and Economic Planning, which is a very good platform for the labor market information system. Because in Lagos, you have a massive influx of people -at least up to 2000 people are coming in a day. So the question is, where are these people staying? What kind of skills do they bring? What kind of needs do they have? This is something that we are still setting up with LSETF to enable the Lagos State government to make available an evidence based policy-making process. We will identify the cities we have within the state with an influx of people, maybe we need to offer something in YVET so people can get skills and then can also get employed, maybe in the same place. For example, there are a lot of building activities going on in Ikorodu. Maybe the government should equip the training center in Ikorodu with construction trades so that more people can get trained and can find a job right there. Same thing on the Lekki axis. There is no training center in some places  but there is one in Aja.  We try to find out where there are gaps and where we can focus activities of the government.  I think that’s important to always emphasize the way we work, because other donors sometimes do things differently. They come and say, oh, yeah, for two years, I’ve trained 10,000 people when I was in CRM. 

If you look at our figures, it’s not necessarily that within the three or five years we are here, we will train all the people, but we create structures that will keep on training people when we leave. Just put in money into the system, train people, and then we are moving out and allow the system to become self sustainable. So it’s always about structures and structures.  That means you need long term commitments.  Even though we always get financial commitments from the government for three to five years, normally, the programs are running for 10 to 15 years  and that’s a time frame in which you can really achieve strategic goals, in which you really can change a system. And when I say change a system, it’s often about trust. I mean, for example, the development of a new training standard, new training content. First of all, to make the private sector understand, what does it mean? What can be my role in this? Why has the Lagos Chamber of Commerce offered? Is it good for me to have a role in this?

Can you give major highlights on the milestones that you’ve accomplished during the project life cycle?

 I think if we look at the figures we have currently, there are about more than 30,000 Nigerians that have gone through our training. We have improved their vocational skills in different areas; agriculture, construction, fashion, ICT and hospitality. They were not necessarily trained by us, but through the organizations we work with. We have trained almost 1700 trainers in different capacities and pedagogical and technical skills. Of course, we have this also in management skills. We have 85 partner organizations we work with in different aspects. It can be the Lagos State Employment trust funds; on neighbour market information system, on training and on entrepreneurship training.  So far, we work in Lagos, we work in Edo, we work in Ogun, we work in Plateau, we work in Abuja and we work in Enugu, among other places.