Quickwin, Grassroot Developmental Programme in @kwaragovt. ~ @tundesaka2000 Cc @bukolasaraki The Senior Special Assistant to @governor_ahmed on Youth Empowerment, @tundesaka2000, in this interview with newsmen reviews the activities of the @Kwaragovt in the search for sustained development and reduction in unemployment through the Quickwin empowerment and employment programme, BETTY IGE reports. About the Quickwin programme As part of the strategic plan of his Excellency, Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed, to ensure that the people of the state, particularly the youth and women, enjoy the dividends of democracy and to equally fulfill his electioneering campaign promises which he made three years ago, he had put in place what we all know today as the Quickwin programme with focus on entrepreneurship. The Ahmed administration has seen that we keep graduating youths from our various educational institutions year in year out with little or nothing for the majority of them to do. It has looked at other countries of the world and has seen the great achievements of people in the area of entrepreneurship as a better means of job creation. It has concluded that entrepreneurship is able to give people the privilege of starting something small, growing it and of course creating jobs for other people along the line. That is the reason Governor Ahmed, since the inception of his administration has determined to focus on the development of entrepreneurship in Kwara State. Design of the programme The Quickwin programme is designed to build a strong human capital development base in the state by taking advantage of its ability to multiply opportunities for the people. Here in Kwara State, the governor is prepared to boost the development of people along their chosen areas of endeavour by adopting the bottom-up approach. Selection criteria for beneficiaries The modality is simple. Since Quickwin is basically a grassroot programme, we ensure we target the lowest delineation in our environment. In this case, it is the polling unit which is even smaller than the ward. We have analyzed polling units across the state to ensure the programme impacts on the grassroot. The governor has equally ensured that no political office holder has an influence over the Quickwin programme. In fact, we have ensured that even politicians do not have total control of it because the Quickwin is a people focused, grassroot developmental programme aimed at giving the people means of livelihood. Relationship with other empowerment schemes Essentially, Quickwin complements other empowerment programmes initiated by the state government. It is a wholistic approach to entrepreneurship. Previously, benefitting youths were trained following a collaboration arrangement with the Kwara State University (KWASU), Malete. This time, we are expanding the horizon and will go beyond using just a single institution. We have realized that competition brings out the best in people. Hence, Governor Ahmed has decided to include the Kwara State Polytechnic and College of Education Technical, Lafiagi. This is because it may be logistically difficult for Kwara North beneficiaries to access the opportunity if they have to come and go every day. But what we have done is to situate their location at COED Technical, Lafiagi, which is the closest point to them. More so, this institution has been enabled to create accommodation for the trainees. Also, the Quickwin is planned in such a way that beneficiaries will receive a monthly salary, which we describe as a bounty derivation opportunity. Spread of the beneficiaries The Quickwin has five core areas including entrepreneurship. Under the Clean and Green we have a total of 1,872 participants; environmental corps, 1,100; KWARTMA, 156 and KWABES, 350. Majority of these enlistees, that is about 95 percent, have collected their letters of enlistment and have resumed work on 1st of July. For instance, those under KWARTMA have been trained and deployed to our major roads. We have also opened bank accounts for the beneficiaries to ensure that we are actually paying the right people and that it is only those that work that will get paid. Feedback by the people It has been exceptional in the sense that the approach the governor adopted is one of the best. The Quickwin is a well thought-out programme touching the common man. This is because the programme is situated online so that people regardless of their background, political affiliation, gender or location can have access. Within a month of launching the programme, many people submitted applications and without knowing the respective backgrounds of the applicants, we went to the data base and enlisted more than a thousand. This approach portrays the Quickwin as a popular programme comparable only to KWABES. Distinction between KWABES and Quickwin KWABES is an elitist programme targeted at those with minimum of secondary education while Quickwin is a grassroot programme meant to empower those with very little or no formal education by giving them the opportunity of benefitting from government programmes and policies. Having realized that all fingers are not equal, Governor Ahmed decided on the Quickwin programme as a way of empowering people who do not necessarily have formal education, and also driving home the fact that it is government’s responsibility to provide available jobs for different categories of people in the state. In essence, KWABES and Quickwin are two distinct empowerment programmes but aimed at creating jobs for the people. Monitoring and evaluation Arrangement is in place for adequate monitoring and evaluation. Part of the arrangement is that the office of the SSA Youth Empowerment will monitor KWABES and Entrepreneurship with the involvement of the Office of the SSA Investment. The Head of Service (HoS) is in charge of KWARTMA, Environmental corps and Clean and Green, since the enlisted are more or less civil servants. Another set of 50 youths are being positioned for employment under KWASAA. Meeting identified challenges It’s been highly challenging but because Quickwin is a programme that was planned about six months in advance, we were prepared for some of the challenges. Hence, as the challenges were coming we confronted them with solutions. Some of the challenges are funding, convincing people to believe in skills acquisition and entrepreneurship and determining the next steps after the programme. However, we have carefully planned this programme, especially the entrepreneurship in such a way that the 830 graduate entrepreneurship enlistees are batched into four groups along skills of interest. This will ensure that people are able to cohabit within the classroom, are able to think together, identify and generate ideas. In other words, it ensures that people of like minds are able to cluster themselves into cooperatives and meet the goal of the programme. Governor Ahmed, on his part is prepared to meet the financial requirement of the programme. Efforts at continuity The sustainability of any programme is key. This has moved Governor Ahmed to put necessary arrangements in motion in terms of identifying relevant MDAs and the private sector organizations that could assist the government in driving the quickwin programme, regardless of who is occupying the seat of government. For instance, there is a Quickwin secretariat domiciled under the office of the SSG. Also, certain directors within the ministries are involved, having carefully identified relevant departments The departmental representatives were brought together to give a presentation before the Quickwin committee. The presentation was properly debated and thereafter certain sections were adopted while some were corrected. Further, we have a strong data base here in the office of the SSA Youth Empowerment even as we recall that during the flag-off of the programme, Governor Ahmed said that he has earmarked a total sum of about 2.5 billion naira for executing the Quickwin scheme. In summary During the flag-off of the Quickwin empowerment and employment programme, a total of 5,400 participants were enlisted. However, the programme is aimed at creating jobs for 8,200 beneficiaries and the strategy is to start with 5,400 and then engage an additional 200 monthly until the target of 8,200 is reached, with mandate to equally ensure the programme cuts across the state.
Posted on: Sun, 06 Jul 2014 04:26:10 +0000