The Ministry of Youth and Sports has disclosed that the government has allocated 2.3 trillion birr for the creation of jobs in the coming five years.
Ethiopia is working to harness its potential in various sectors that could create mass jobs so as to benefit the youth from the ongoing development, Redwan Hussein, Youth and Sports Minister said.
In an exclusive interview with ENA, Redwan said priority has given towards harnessing the potential created by economic and infrastructural expansion across the country.
Efforts are being undertaken to harness the potential in telecommunication, road, electrification, railway, agriculture and among others with the large number of unemployed youth, he said.
According to him, the potential in these areas could absorb over one million youth.
“The government believes that the youth are the driving force in sustaining the ongoing growth and attain Ethiopia's vision of becoming a middle income country by 2025. When we look into countries which have 50 or 60 years of development history, they ensured their growth through the participation of the youth”, Redwan said.
The government has been undertaking measures that enable the youth benefited from the development activities, he added.
In spite of efforts to benefit the youth in the country in an organized way, Redwan said, there is still significant number of youth who have not benefited from the opportunities.
In this regard, the Ministry has rearranged the youth package to enhance the participation of the youth in the economic social and political arena of the country thereby to maximize its benefit, he added.
“Of course we have created tremendous job opportunities in micro and small enterprise, agriculture, manufacturing and other areas. But our youth are still have problems in accessing job opportunities both at urban and rural areas because of poor governance”, the minister said.
Of the total, 48 percent of the budget will be allocated for infrastructure development activities including road, railway and technology that would create more jobs for the youth.