Spoke to consultants researching the market for a youth project that will train women and men in business skills and then , stick them into companies for apprenticeship projects. I am familiar with such programming both at the UN as a donor reporting officer and, as an entrepreneur. I am surprised that the analysis coming from international donors and partners remains the same and isn’t deeper in terms of where the economy is at. From my own historical knowledge: this methodology was implemented in the DDRR programme and, ex-combatants were trained in vocational skills at pre-war institutions like BWI and, YMCA and then, either given toolkits or stuck into organisations for internships. A few years later , I hired two young women as apprentices through an American NGO implementing the same type of youth project. What I have learned ? The whole burden of absorbing apprentices falls on the organisation which might just be grooming them for better opportunities. In an ever stagnant economy like Liberia, what kind of investments are really needed to create employment ? Also from what I gather, very little solid investment has been made into educational and vocational institutions. Instead these pre-war institutions have to compete to win training contracts driving a capitalist ethos rather than creating permanent quality institutions. Thinking outside the international development nexus, when one looks around in the urban centre of Monrovia, the youth that is thriving has built small-scale businesses themselves despite the challenges of having no electricity, poor infrastructure, no support from the state, corruption, etc. This is where the analysis should start, not from a vacuum. Policymakers should come up with programming at a deeper level that reflects the current dynamics.
