The Ministry of Youth and ICT (MYICT) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Netherlands Development Organisation (SNV) with an aim to create employment for 4,000 youth from across the country.

The partnership is under The "Opportunities for Youth Employment” (OYE) project, implemented by SNV with funding from the MasterCard Foundation.

The OYE project is a regional programme that is targeting to create employment for 4,000 Rwandan youth over five years (2014-2018).

The Minister for Youth and ICT, Jean Philbert Nsengimana, noted that Rwanda is tackling youth unemployment by working with various partners.

"This MoU will be assisting us to do several activities at ago primarily to protect our environment and create jobs for the youth, which are both important pillars of Rwanda’s sustainable development strategy,” he said.

The project will see MYICT and SNV join hands to improving the livelihoods of out-of-school youth by creating jobs and self-employment opportunities in the renewable energy sector.

"We are excited to work with the Ministry of Youth and ICT, contributing to the economic development and poverty reduction (of Rwanda) by equipping young people to take charge of their own development through promising careers in sustainable renewable energy sector where employment opportunities are emerging,” SNV Rwanda country director Phomolo Maphosa said.

SNV is also supporting capacity of 40 youth in ICT application in the coffee sector, including promotion of specially designed mobile application and smart phones for collecting and uploading the voices of 10,000 smallholder coffee farmers.

It also plans to provide relevant skills in beekeeping to support 500 farmers, including 50 per cent of whom are youth and women in starting beekeeping group enterprises.

Employment focus will be mainly within biogas and improved cooking stoves (ICS) and related sectors such as briquette production and biogas slurry, pico- hydro and in the solar sector.

The employment projections are based on the expected growth of the various sectors and associated labour requirements as per the plans of the Government.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw