The Mozambican President, Filipe Nyusi, said this Monday, April 1, that the government has invested more than 133 million meticals (2.08 million dollars) in the period between 2020 and 2023, to fund youth empowerment programmes across the country.
Nyusi shared these figures during the third Ordinary Session of the National Council of the Mozambican Youth Organisation (OJM), which kicked off at the party’s school in the city of Matola, in preparation for the general elections scheduled for 9 October this year.
According to the publication Agência de Informação de Moçambique (AIM), the money allocated in the state budget was used to fund 800 youth projects in 80 districts in all the country’s provinces, through the “My Kit, My Job” initiative, aimed at stimulating youth entrepreneurship, which has resulted in the creation of 7,000 youth micro-enterprises.
The body explains that the Executive has also created the Emprega programme, which has already trained more than 3,500 companies, 550 of which are being financed with non-refundable amounts of up to 1.5 million meticals each, and has also trained more than 21,000 young people, with more than 5,000 having already received funding to formalise their businesses.
“This agenda must be carried out with young people. It is well known that, through structuring governance programmes, the country has seen growth in many sectors of the economy and society, in the midst of adversity in different areas. The youth agenda is the opportunity to fund youth empowerment programmes,” said the President of the Republic.
The head of state said that the Youth Initiatives Support Fund (FAIJ) had gone from an average of 5 million meticals a year to around 33 million meticals in the period from 2015 to 2024. At the same time, 37,387 young people benefited from paid and unpaid pre-professional internships, enabling them to accelerate their placement on the labour market.
“We have invested in the creation, modernisation and certification of vocational training centres, employment centres, youth entrepreneurship incubators and also mobile vocational training units which, as a whole, have benefited more than 110,000 young people of both sexes,” he said.
Filipe Nyusi also said that, given the demand, the government is expanding the establishment of vocational training and employment centres, with the centres in Muidumbe, Cabo Delgado province, Malema and Ilha de Moçambique (Nampula), Gorongosa (Sofala), Chimoio (Manica), Angónia (Tete), Malema (Niassa) and Manhiça (Maputo) due to come into operation this year.
“We have also awarded scholarships to young people, as well as setting up the Young Creative Award, through which we have funded around two thousand initiatives, to the tune of 8 million meticals,” the President of the Republic emphasised.
Aware of the social barriers faced by young girls, the Executive created the Eu Sou Capaz (I Am Able) Programme, an initiative based on encouraging a healthy life and girls to stay in school. “As part of this programme, we have distributed more than 636,000 pairs of uniforms free of charge and more than 14,000 bicycles to girls who have reached the eighth and ninth grades, as well as raising awareness among more than 41,000 out-of-school girls and 7620 community leaders. It has been our concern to ensure the structured participation of young people in the country’s development,” said the head of state.
Filipe Nyusi also shared the country’s vision of employability, which involves taking advantage of the immense potential of its natural resources in favour of young people, encouraging them to take up areas such as agriculture through the Sustenta Programme, fishing through the Mais Peixe Programme, among other initiatives that have resulted in 33,000 young people being reached, the delivery of 733 improved houses and 55 digital squares and the creation of 12 digital libraries.
