The federal government has launched a national talent export programme to create at least one million jobs over the next five years.
This is to be done through s special purpose vehicle, tagged National Talent Export Programme, NATEP.
The Minister of Industry, Trade, and Investment, Doris Uzoka-Anite, who disclosed this on the sidelines of the 78th United Nations General Assembly, UNGA, at an event in New York, USA, dubbed "Positioning Nigeria as a Global Talent Hub", explained that the initiative was in line with President Bola Tinubu's agenda to diversify the economy, create sustainability opportunities, and generate about 50million jobs for the youths.
According to her, NATEP is a key national initiative that will serve as a special purpose vehicle to position Nigeria as a leading global hub for service export, talent sourcing and talent export."
She said: "As part of our strategy towards achieving President Bola Tinubu's agenda for job creation, we have initiated a national talent export programme for Nigeria, which targets the creation of one million jobs across Nigeria over a five-year period.
"NATEP is a key national initiative that will serve as a special purpose vehicle to position Nigeria as a leading global hub for service exports, talent sourcing and talent export.
"The Nigerian government, under the leadership of President Bala Tinubu, as part of the Renewed Hope Agenda, is committed to diversifying the economy and creating sustainable employment opportunities, especially for youth by creating 50 million jobs.
"This is in tandem with the theme of this year's UNGA, rebuilding trust and igniting global solidarity, accelerating action on the 2030 agenda and the sustainable development goals towards peace, prosperity, progress and sustainability for all," Uzoka-Anite said at the gathering, comprising officials of the World Economic Forum and the Microsoft group.
According to her, NATEP will be dedicated to addressing the unique needs and challenges faced by the talent and service sector export industry, laying emphasis on enhancing competitiveness, fostering innovation, and driving sustainable growth through trade in services.
Available data indicate that the global talent sourcing industry is valued at $620 billion as at 2020 and it is forecast to be valued at about $904 billion by 2027.
Consequently, the minister said Nigeria had the ability to supply top talent for the global service export and outsourcing business, with over 1.7 million graduates from higher education institutions entering the workforce annually.
"NATEP will serve as a dedicated entity to address the unique needs and challenges faced by talents and service export industry. The programme will lay special emphasis on enhancing competitiveness, fostering innovation and driving sustainable growth through trade and services," she added.
While stating that Nigeria was ready to become a global hub for talent export, Uzoka-Anite said government would take full advantage of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, AfCFTA, to penetrate the continent's huge market and target job opportunities in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, among others.
In his remarks, the Minister of Communication, Innovation, and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani, while welcoming the initiative, noted that it was extremely timely as Nigeria was losing out of the benefits countries like India enjoy.
"I think one thing we've not done well, is actually to be intentional, around how we milk that opportunity for our own economic development. And this is why this programme is extremely important.
"I've been following the Nigerian story, we've been losing a lot of our top talents to the world. Canada is soaking in a lot, the UK as well as. I think the UK last week or so announced that if you've never taught physics, but you've studied physics, you can now come into the UK to teach and they'll give you £10,000 to actually come in.
"So, the implication of that is that we're going to be losing a significant proportion of people in that space of the academy."
Managing Director of the World Economic Forum, WEF, Dr. Saadia Zahidi, who also spoke at the event, promised to support Nigeria's effort in the new talent export programme.
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She said: "The World Economic Forum in Nigeria has a long standing partnership and we are very happy to support this particular effort.
"The forum established some months ago, a skills accelerator in Nigeria and under the leadership of the minister and others, we hope we will be able to provide support to NATEP through the continuous rescaling and upskilling of the workforce that will be a part of this initiative.
"The way these accelerators work, we bring in some of the learning and training providers, we bring in some of the companies that have the most to teach very often to the youth that are part of these programmes, and, of course, bringing together the public sector as well, to then ensure that in a rapid 18 to 24 month period, there's a rapid setup of not just the learning for those that will be part of this workforce.
"But that there is ongoing systems, change ongoing upskilling, ongoing rescaling so that those skills are not redundant at some point in time," she said.
