Partners, Private Sectors Join Govt’s Agenda on Job Creation

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Addis  Ababa November 1/2019 Development partners and the private sector have expressed commitment to join efforts of the government of Ethiopia in the process of creating dignified job opportunities.

The government of Ethiopia yesterday conducted its first ever national job summit aimed to provide a high-level platform for policymakers at federal and regional level, development partners, and private sector to discuss job creation.

In the summit that attracts 450 stakeholders, development partners and private actors pledged to contribute their best in the process of job creation.

MasterCard Foundation, the third largest foundation globally with the financial assists worth about 30 billion USD, is among the participants that partner with the government for the creation of dignified jobs.

The foundation has partnered with the government of Ethiopia for the creation of around 10 million jobs to young Ethiopians by 2030 through it’s the ‘Young Africa Works’ initiative.

Peter Materu, Chief Program Officer of the Foundation told ENA that the foundation has committed to create dignified jobs in Africa in collaboration with stakeholders and Ethiopia is among its priorities.

According to him, the foundation has chosen to partner with Ethiopia due to its increasing young population and need for millions of new jobs.

Materu said the foundation has been doing analytical work to understand the dimension of challenges and opportunities in the process of facilitating the creation of jobs for around 10 million people.

He said the project is aligned with government’s strategy, as it prioritizes four major sectors namely agriculture, tourism, manufacturing and digital economy for the creation of the jobs.

According to Materu, the foundation will commit about 300 million USD for the project for the coming 10 years.

He said the foundation works in collaboration with the government and the private sector as well for the effectiveness of the project.

“We strongly believe that creating jobs is a responsibility of the private sector. So one of the things that we will be doing is working much more with the private sector to create job opportunities; but we know that we need the government as well. So we have been very creative also engaging the government and also  strengthening strategic institution within the government; but without having to put money in the government”, he said.

He said the foundation has ‘very robust’ evaluation and monitoring system that is build around the programs and it will monitor and control the proper usage of the money.

RENEW, a U.S-based firm that has been working in Ethiopia since 2013, take part in the initiative, hoping to solve financial constraints of small and medium enterprises and facilitate investment linkages.

So far, the firm has facilitated investment linkages to 12 Ethiopian entrepreneurs.

Laura Davis, partner at RENEW, said that the company wants to strengthen its partnership with Ethiopia by creating linkage to small and medium enterprises to enable them easily penetrate the international market.

Laura, who focuses on operations, business relations and creating investor experiences, believes that the private sector should take the lead in creating jobs, while the government facilitates the situation.

“As an actor, I think the private sector is really the center piece for job creation. And so anything that the development community and in particular the government of Ethiopia can do to support the private sector, to get ride of the bottleneck that keep the private sector growing. All of those efforts we continue to go along with and helping the government of Ethiopia to create the jobs that need to come in order to keep peace and stability here”, she said.

The Ethiopian government is working to create about three million jobs this year in collaboration with development partners and the private sector to sustain the economic growth.

Ethiopian News Agency
2023