Can you give us an overview of what the Lagos State Employment Trust Fund is doing to generate jobs and reduce youth unemployment?
The Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF) was established by The Lagos State Employment Trust Fund Law 2016 to provide financial support to residents of Lagos State, for jobs, wealth creation and to tackle unemployment. We aim to enhance the creative and innovative energies of all Lagos residents and reduce unemployment across the State. This is done by focusing on promoting entrepreneurship by improving access to finance, strengthening the institutional capacity of MSMEs, and formulating policies designed to improve the business environment in Lagos State. So far, we have supported over 11,500 small businesses in Lagos State and created more than 100,000 jobs. We currently operate three programmes namely; MSME Loan Programme: Our Loan Programme provides access to finance and business development support (Capacity Development, Market Access, Mentoring, Promotions) to for Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SME), Micro- Enterprises (ME) and Micro – Enterprise Startups (MES) beneficiaries with a maximum value of N5million, N500,000 and N250,000 respectively.
Lagos State Employability Support Project plans to increase the pool of skilled manpower to alleviate the acute shortages of employable labour in Lagos. The project will improve the quality of labour in several sectors including; construction, manufacturing, healthcare, hospitality, garment making, and entertainment amongst others.
Also, Lagos Innovates is a dedicated platform that refers to a set of programs that provide support for the exciting and fast-growing start-up ecosystem in Lagos State. Lagos Innovates is designed to assist founders and start-ups by facilitating access to high-quality workspaces and infrastructure, learning, early-stage investment capital, and investor and peer networks. Programs are open to all innovation-driven enterprises that are less than three years old and based in Lagos state.
What impact has the programme had on the youths in the state?
So far, LSETF has provided training opportunities to 6,095 young persons in diverse sectors and has placed 3,054 of them in jobs. In 2020, we onboarded over 35,000 youths on Coursera training platform. Our Lagos Innovates Programme has provided workspace vouchers to 127 start-up businesses and has provided 18 students with the opportunity to be trained in technology skills (7 have been placed in jobs)
How much has the LSETF spent so far in funding entrepreneurs and how many youths have gone through your training programmes?
LSETF has spent approximately N7.4 billion in funding and support for…
