© Post originally published on www.ifad.org Many young people leave their homes in the rural areas of West Africa with a dream of succeeding in the city. But all too often, they can only find poorly paid jobs in the informal sector—if they find work at all. In Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, one in five young people is unemployed. To stop the flow of young people out of rural areas, the IFAD-supported pilot of the Youth Employment in Agri-business and Sustainable Agriculture (YEASA) initiative gave more than 2,000 unemployed rural youth in Nigeria and Benin the skills and equipment needed to become successful agri-entrepreneurs. Fishy business Awoniyi owns seven ponds where she stocks thousands of fish. © Onasanya Emmanuel Oludayo 35-year-old Awoniyi Folake Temitope started her smoked catfish business in Nigeria after receiving training and cash grants for drying equipment through YEASA. But soon after she started, […]

For immediate release Ecobank collaborates with IITA to train and support 16,000 youths on agripreneurship The partnership will also develop a youth-focused agribusiness finance model  Ibadan, Nigeria, March 10, 2023 – Ecobank, through a collaboration with the Nigeria-based CGIAR center International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), will provide training and support services to 16,000 youths in Nigeria. This collaborative initiative known as Youth Empowerment and Capacity Building in Agribusiness targets youth between the ages of 18-40 years across Nigeria in aquaculture, horticulture, poultry, and value addition. The collaboration is an outcome of discussions from the Investment Network Forum organized by the IITA Youth in Agribusiness office to increase investment and financing opportunities for startups and established agribusinesses. Banks and financial institutions often look at youths and their agribusinesses as a high-risk group. However, Ecobank champions youth agribusiness financing and will partner with IITA to provide additional streams of funding. This […]

It started from an idea, now it is operational. I-Youth has established an Agribusiness Park in Kaduna state to provide trained beneficiaries with a common space and facility to operate their agric enterprises. The poultry Agribusiness Park housed within the facility of Miringa Farms in Zaria has two units of 1500-capacity layers pens, a unit of 1500 broiler pen, and six concrete fishponds of 500-capacity. This initiative will run across the project locations (Kano, Kaduna, and Lagos state) and it will allow qualified trained beneficiaries to operate for some time at the park in clusters and start their independent business outside the park with proceeds they have saved from operating the enterprises at the park. The agribusiness park is part of the I-Youth project’s plan to transition vocational training centers to Agricultural parks to serve as an incubation center as well as an agribusiness hub. These centers are designed to […]