Friday 31 October 2014

NEEC TO PARTNER WITH YBI TO SUPPORTS YOUTH ENTREPRENEURS IN TANZANIA


Youth Business International (YBI), a Prince Charles Charity organization will soon expand its works to Tanzania through a partnership with the National Economic Empowerment Council (NEEC) as a lead coordinator of its envisaged Underserved Youth Entrepreneurship Development program.
This was revealed at the workshop on Establishing the National Program for Under-served Youth Entrepreneurs (Youth Business Tanzania) that was jointly hosted by NEEC and YBI held recently in Dar es Salaam

Officiating the Workshop, NEEC Executive Secretary, Dr Anacleti Kashuliza, applauded YBI for accepting to partner with NEEC in the Planning and Design of a national program for underserved young entrepreneurs in Tanzania.
He continued by stating that, ‘’this partnership between NEEC and YBI will open up more doors for engagement of national and regional players in the support of Youth Entrepreneurship development geared towards job creation instead of job seeking’’.
According to 2011 estimates the new entrants in the labour market range from 800,000 to 1,000,000 school graduates per year who compete for less than 60,000 available employment positions per year in the public sector and approximately 300,000 in the Private sector. This implies that between 400,000 to 600,000 youth will annually join the group of unemployed labour force in the country. The situation of unemployment will more likely get worse if corresponding measures to redress it are not taken.
YBI is already working in 40 countries, supporting under-served young people aged 18-35 years, who want to start and grow business with potential for employment creation. YBI scale and impact in 2013 includes a loan portfolio of $ 100 Million; 21, 985 business volunteer mentors; 14,406 youth-led businesses; and, a total of 197,600 young people who received training.
According to Dianne Cornes, Director, Network Expansion for YBI, their  vision is to have  integrated start-up support for young entrepreneurs across Tanzania, accessible across all areas of the country; provided by one or more local organizations and engaging multiple stakeholders public, private and civil society institutions;
Through its partnership with NEEC, YBI will identify and establish a partnership with national experts and respected organisations sharing YBI’s mission and values, to deliver training, mentor the youth and to assist the youth to get access to finance. The Tanzania Entrepreneurship Competitiveness Centre (TECC) has already been identified as the key technical partner in the implementation of the envisaged program.
Signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between NEEC and YBI is scheduled to be signed in the last week of November 2014, for the pilot phase of the program to take –off in the following year.