ABUJA (ILO News) - The Director of the ILO Country Office for Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone, Dennis Zulu, has called on trainees of the ILO Start and Improve Your Business (SIYB) Module to take advantage of the training and create decent jobs for themselves and others. He stated this on Thursday 31^st May 2018 when he paid a visit to the trainees at the National Youth Service Corps Headquarters in Abuja.

Addressing the trainees and trainers, Dennis Zulu informed them that the SIYB was one of the ILO’s Training Packages used to empower youth to start their businesses while existing Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) use it to improve their businesses so that they could become creators of decent jobs.

He informed the participants that the SIYB Training package comprised four products, namely, Generate Your Business Idea (GYBI); Start Your business (SYB); Improve Your Business (IYB); and Expand Your Business (EYB). He informed them that SIYB was a package that has empowered youths and SMEs in over 130 Countries for over 3 decades. He reminded the corps members of the necessity to translate the skills and knowledge inculcated into them to create business that could grow, expand, and play a leading role in the private sector of the Nigerian economy.

He further reminded them that as the business grew and expanded, there would be a need for finance to expand their businesses. He therefore suggested to them the need to link up with various Micro-Finance Banks (MFBs), Bank Of Industry (BOI), Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Bank Of Agriculture (BOA) among others. He encouraged the trainees to endeavour to put into practice all they had leant.  

He congratulated the NYSC for taking steps to empower the Nigerian youth through their Skill Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development (SAED) Program. He stated that the NYSC was a great partner in the effort to empower youth with decent jobs through SIYB training.

Speaking in relation to business financing, the SIYB Master Trainer informed the ILO Director that arrangement to link the trainees to finance had been done by Cognity Advisory in collaboration with CBN. This would help the Corps members to access funds for the setting up of their businesses as well as expansion of such businesses.

The training of NYSC officials and corps member was coordinated by NYSC in collaboration with the International Labour Organization (ILO), General Electric (GE) and Cognity Advisory.

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Start and Improve Your Business (SIYB) is currently the largest global business management training programme with a focus on starting and improving businesses as a strategy for creating more and better employment for women and men. It supports the sustainable development goals by promoting:

• Business development policies that support decent job creation, entrepreneurship and encourage the growth of micro, small and medium enterprises
• Productive employment and decent work for all, including the youth and persons with disabilities