NABCo is a necessary short–term intervention - AFAG

The Alliance for Accountable Governance (AFAG) has said that the Nation Builders Corps (NABCo) is a thoughtful initiative by the Government to address the current unemployment situation in the country.

AFAG said it supports the deliberate effort of the government and the President’s vision to create jobs for the unemployment graduates.

A statement from AFAG and copied to the Ghana News Agency said “Like many other social intervention programmes, the NABCo concept has the propensity to resolve the socio economic challenges facing the youth in the country.”

The statement said the initiative module would complement public sector delivery in the agriculture, education, health, technology and governance sectors as well as drive revenue mobilisation and collection.

It said it would afford graduates the opportunity to earn a decent income and at the same time expose them to the world of work while improving their skills and employability in the module they find themselves.

“NABCo is fantastic short term solution to youth unemployment. It is doing for graduates what the Youth Employment Agency (YEA) is doing for unskilled labour where young people from the ages of 15 to 35 years go through skills training and internship modules to transit from being unemployment to employment,” the statement said.

The statement urged Government to forge ahead and consider ways of improving on the NABCo idea as it worked towards creating more lasting employment opportunities for the youth.

It also urged Government to engage the private sector and define a source of funding for the programme, mostly independent of District Assembly Common Fund (DACF), adding that the reliance of the DACF stifled District Assemblies of development programmes.

The statement said, Government must, as matter of national priority, develop a National Youth Employment policy and suggested to government to look for robust economic foundations to ensure a more sustainable job creation for the youth..

The statement said AFAG was confident that the government was capable of meeting the challenge with the view that the private sector-led employment was the only sustainable job creation.