NEDI on course to address youth unemployment

The National Enterprise Development Initiative (NEDI) is an initiative established by the president to address problems of youth unemployment, thereby redirecting their focus from taking disastrous journeys to Europe through the high seas.

The initiative is spearheaded by the Office of the Vice President in partnership with the Department of State for Youth and Sports. NEDI aims to make basic commodities accessible in all parts of the country through the active participation of young men and women. The core aim of the initiative is to create employment opportunities for young people and to cut down the sky rocketing prices of basic commodities.

As part of its ongoing activities for young people, NEDI has established fifty-seven consumer shops across the country. In addition, the Initiative, in partnership with Bank PHB recently supported forty young people by disbursing a loan of fifty thousand dalasis to each of them, payable over a period of two years with 17% interest.

Pa-Malick Ceeay, executive secretary of the National Youth Council, who is also the coordinator of NEDI said the forty young people are currently operating their own businesses, thereby reducing the rate of unemployment in the youth sector. A recruitment process, he added, was carried before the fifty thousand dalasi loans were given to them. Ceesay expressed optimism that the disbursement of the loan will go a long way in uplifting the standards of young men and women in the retail business and help them to compete healthily.

To this end, he went on, the initiative will further avail people in the local communities who cannot afford the opportunity to buy wholesale goods, to also buy in retail. He observed that such a move will reduce the cost of transportation, hence all the basic ingredients are available in all the fifty-seven consumer shops which are strategically located in centres of the different communities.

Ceesay then thanked the government of The Gambia for coming up with the initiative. He also thanked Bank PHB and the Jammeh Foundation for Peace for complementing the government’s efforts in the development of Gambian youth.  Speaking to the beneficiaries (the young people), Ceesay urged them to close ranks in the interest of development and also called on other banks in the country to emulate Bank PHB.