CBN Boosts Youth Entrepreneurship with N3m Credit Incentives

The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele, on Tuesday launched the Youth Innovative Entrepreneurship Development Programme (YIED-P), an initiative designed to unlock the ingenuity and resourcefulness of youths to drive the economy. About 1,000 youths would be targeted and one million direct jobs in productive activities would be created within the next four years with special credit line of up to N3 million made available for each eligible youth.

He said the scheme, which is open to youths ,who are either serving in the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) or those not more than five years post-NYSC service, will fix the problem of inadequate finance which is often encountered by business start-ups.

Recipients who utilise the funds properly could be encouraged to migrate to the other CBN interventions where they could be given more funds to grow their businesses, he added.

He said collateral requirements would be made “very simple” to include academic and NYSC certificates, third party guarantees and other movable assets in order to expedite this programme.

Together with our partners, we have developed a robust operational framework that will deliver a bias-free pre-qualification and selection process. We have also created a portal to streamline the application process and ease back-end processes.”