By Okechukwu Onuegbu
Awka
The National Directorate of Employment (NDE), Thursday, kicked off three days training for 50 unemployed graduates in Anambra State on agricultural value chain for sustainable development.
The NDE State Coordinator, Mrs. Chika Ufelle, while flagging off the training at Amawbia in Awka South local government area of Anambra state, explained that the participants would be trained on agricultural intervention policies, livestock production, and digital marketing of agricultural products.
According to Ufelle, other areas were food processing, packaging and marketing aimed at providing more food, creating employment opportunities especially at the rural areas with a view to reducing poverty and enhancing the farmers quality of life.
She added that the agency entered into collaboration with some organisations like the Central Bank of Nigeria through the NIRSAL Micro Finance Bank( the AGSMEIS Loan Scheme), Bank of Agriculture (BoA), National Economic Reconstruction Fund, (NERFUND), among other financial institutions, with a view to sourcing finance for it's teeming beneficiaries.
"Empowerment of trained persons is very capital intensive and it's therefore difficult for the NDE to resettle every person trained through its various programmes. The Directorate took the initiative to enter into collaboration with some credit granting institutions in order to expand the scope of it's resettlement activities to accommodate more skilled unemployed persons," she noted.
Speaking in an interview, one of the trainees, Mrs. Flora Nwabunwanne commended the management of NDE for such an opportunity, and assuring that they would create a very positive impact to the society with the wealth of knowledge gathered at the course of the training.