Government says it has reached out to over 3,000 youth with a business incubation programme to learn principles of business management through the Jobs for Youth Project (J4Y).

Presenting a ministerial statement on the progress of the project in Parliament, Minister of Youth and Sports Ulemu Msungama said the project seeks to economically empower young people across the country.

Said Msungama: “3,043 youths (1,780 males and 1,263 females) have gone through a business incubation programme to learn principles of business management.

“1,896 (1,074 males and 822 females) of them have completed the Business Incubation programme.”

Msungama added that government will also provide start-up capital for the trained young people to start and run their own businesses.

The project has 3 major components namely: Entrepreneurship Education and Sustainable Enterprises Development, Skills Development for Employability, as well as Institutional Support and Project Management.

Msungama added that 1,022 (564 males and 458 females) of those that completed the programme are running their businesses; leading to the creation of 1,065 jobs so far.

“84 youth (34 males and 50 females) are trained in entrepreneurship in agriculture using Project’s developed curriculum and training materials,” said Msungama.

“A total of 520 youths will be trained in entrepreneurship by end December, 2021. The breakdown being: 240 in agriculture, 120 in ICT and 80 apiece in manufacturing and small-scale mining. Four training institutions are engaged by the Ministry to provide the training.”

The J4Y Project commenced in 2017 with an African Development Bank (AfDB) loan of MK4.7 Billion and a grant of MK446.9 million as well as in kind and cash funding to the tune of MK250 million from the Malawi Government thereby pegging the project’s total funding at MK5 billion.

The project operations focus on four economic sectors of the economy namely agriculture, manufacturing, small scale mining and Information and Communications Technology (ICT).