Portugal’s ambassador to Mozambique announced on Monday that the European Union will provide around €9 million for the second phase of entrepreneurship and employment stimulus projects in the provinces of Cabo Delgado and Nampula.
“A new stage of the project will begin soon and we have great ambitions for it. In partnership with the European Union, with the support of Camões de Portugal, we are going to carry out +Emprego 2, with around €9 million at our disposal”, declared Ambassador António Costa Moura during the conference on the first final of the Mais Emprego project for young people in Cabo Delgado. This province has been the target of insurgent attacks.
The announced second phase of the +Emprego project is due to be extended to the province of Nampula, also located in the north of Mozambique and the most populous in the country. Discussions are in the final stages to define the period in which the initiative will be implemented.
“Portugal will always be present in an area as crucial as this [youth employment], which is to provide young people with the minimum conditions to fulfil a profession and learn how to do things,” promised Ambassador António Costa Moura.
The first phase of the Mais Emprego project, developed over the last four years in the province of Cabo Delgado, was supported by the European Union with around €4.5 million and organized by the Portuguese government through the Camões Institute.
The project aimed to stimulate the creation of jobs for young people in the province of Cabo Delgado. According to the Portuguese ambassador to Mozambique, it has reached 1,435 trainees, including 937 young people, 317 trainers and employment technicians, 181 technicians and managers from partner organisations, 304 trainees in 39 companies, and 149 young people who have been awarded self-employment packages.
“More than 50% of the young people covered have improved their income thanks to the intervention of this project. Mais Emprego also supported 35 small and medium-sized enterprises [SMEs] on their path to quality certification,” added Moura, noting that these are results achieved against a backdrop of terrorist attacks that led to the retraction of megaprojects and affected SMEs in the province.
Source: Lusa
