Odimmegwa Johnpeter/Abuja
The Federal Government is open to collaborating with non-governmental organisations to achieve its goal of creating meaningful employment opportunities.
Minister of Labour and Employment, Muhammad Maigari Dingyadi, said this today in Abuja when he received a consortium of NGOs, part of the United Nations NGO Committee on Social Development, led by its national head, Daniel Black. This was contained in a statement signed by Patience Onuobia, Head, Press and Public Relations.
He expressed the government’s readiness to collaborate with the civil society organisations in generating creative ideas on how to create safe jobs, including blue collar jobs, for the unemployed, particularly for the youths.
According to him, “The Federal Government’s objectives, as well as initiatives, in this area are to ensure that people get jobs they can call their own; jobs that they have tried to establish on their own, not white collar jobs; jobs that can generate a lot of employment for our youths.
“Our mandate is to create opportunities for jobs and to ensure the youths of the country are gainfully employed through several other means of engagement.
“We can collaborate to work towards creating jobs, very safe jobs for that matter, for our dear young men and women in the country.”
Earlier, the leader of the group, Daniel Black had disclosed that they would be attending the 63rd session of the United Nations Commission for Social Development scheduled for February 2025 in New York, where they would share Nigeria’s social development experience.
He said that in preparation for participation in that Session, the group would hold a United Nations Social Development workshop tomorrow, 30 January in Abuja, aimed at fostering collaboration between the government and Civil Society Organisations to increase and improve the social development indicators in Nigeria.
Black stated: “At the end of that workshop, we are going to develop a report that we will be presenting in New York during the 63rd session of the United Nations Commission for Social Development.
“The report will highlight the reality of social development in Nigeria, and we will also be mentioning the roles that different parastatals and government ministries are playing to ensure that these social development indicators are improved.”
He invited the Ministry to the workshop to share insights on its activities to positively impact social development indices in the country, stressing the strong connection between labour, employment, decent work, and social development.
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