Hiiraan Online
Sunday, May 29, 2016
MOGADISHU (HOL) -Struggling to tackle the high unemployment rates in the long-chaotic country, Somalia’s government announced a new project which aims to create thousands of jobs in the hope of reducing poverty and economic grievances among youth in the horn of Africa nation.
According to the World Bank, Somalia’s development and humanitarian indicators are among the lowest in the world, with the overall unemployment rate among people aged 15 to 64 is estimated at 54 percent in Somalia, up from 47 percent since 2002.
Launching the new project dubbed Somali Core Economic Institutions and Opportunities Project (SCORE), Mohamed Aden Ibrahim; Somalia’s finance minister said that the $30 million project would work with both private and public sectors to help in the creation of job opportunities.
“This project will primarily focus on empowering public and private sectors including ports ministry, commerce ministry and the central bank to enhance the financial management system.” He told reporters in Mogadishu Sunday.
Mr. Ibrahim noted that the new nationwide initiative funded by international donors and World Bank would also empower private companies to spur an economic growth and job creation efforts.
On early this year, Somali president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud had earlier raised hope in a post-war economic growth, saying that his government created 2500 jobs last year in an attempt to tackle the rampant unemployment rate in the country.
In October last year, Somalia’s prime minister Omar Abdirashid Sharmarke had also proposed the government’s ‘grand development plan’ to the United Nations Security Council to rebuild country’s social and physical infrastructure to help building a better future.
The horn of Africa nation which is recovering from decades of war is struggling to rebuild amid security challenges posed by the Al-Qaeda linked Al Shabab group which is waging a deadly guerilla warfare across large parts of central and southern Somalia.
According to a recent report by the World Bank, Somalia is gradually raising political stability, marking a turnaround for the country ravaged by over two decades of civil war since 1991 which had destroyed the country’s entire infrastructure, forcing the impoverished nation to start picking up pieces from the scratch.