By Segun Ojumu/ Idehai Frederick
Monrovia, Liberia – A Nigerian member of the ECOWAS Parliament is calling for a fundamental shift in strategy to address West Africa’s crippling unemployment crisis, asserting that the private sector, not government, holds the key to job creation. Pascal Agbodike, a Member of the ECOWAS Parliament from Nigeria, spoke to reporters on the sidelines of the ongoing delocalised meeting in Monrovia, where regional leaders are assessing the effectiveness of the ECOWAS Investment Policy (EIP) as a tool to boost employment.
Mr. Agbodike argued that governments across the sub-region cannot solely absorb the vast numbers of unemployed, particularly the burgeoning youth population. “It is the private sector that gives what we need to develop every nation,” he stated. To unlock this potential, he urged governments to “pay proper attention to the business of the private sectors” and embed support for enterprises into national budgets. Specifically, Mr. Agbodike proposed implementing legislation to ensure a fixed percentage of every ECOWAS country’s budget is channelled towards Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), which he identified as crucial drivers of innovation and job growth. He stressed the need for governments to actively support “all the factory owners” in their respective countries, believing that such targeted measures, backed by robust legal frameworks, would ultimately make unemployment “a thing of the past.”