Federal Government on Thursday reiterated its commitment to improving nation’s human capital development by 2030.

Deputy Chief of Staff (DCoS) to the Vice President on NEC/Climate Change, Senator Hassan Hadejia gave the assurance in Abuja during the flag-off of the one-day ‘Strategy Validation Stakeholders Engagement Workshop of Nigeria’s Human Capital Development Programme’, with the theme: ‘From strategy to action: Empowering States for human capital development’.

According to him, to achieve the set objectives of the Human Capital Development Programme otherwise known as HCD 2.0, improving access to quality education, enhancing healthcare services, providing skills training and employment opportunities, cannot be done in isolation.

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Speaking during a media chat at the sideline of the programme, Senator Hadejia observed that the HCD 2.0 initiative was aimed at improving on HCD 1.0 implemented by the immediate past administration for 8 years.

He said: “This is a programme that started with the last administration and we came, inherited it and decided that because of its significance, we take a look at what is happening in thr last eight years and come up with the HCD 2.0 which is a brand new concept taking all the successes of the last attempt and them making improvements where we noticed that there were certain challenges.”

While responding to question on how measures are being put in place to curb the mass exodus of productive Nigerians out of the country, Senator Hadejia who gave update on the Global Outsourcing Programme (GPO) initiated by the present administration, said: “We live in a global setting now in the sense that with technology, the whole world is about borderless.

“First of all, you can’t stop people from leaving to seek greener pastures. What you can do is maybe embrace a programme like this (HCD) creates opportunities for people to stay at home and contribute and then maybe create a platform where you could be in Nigeria through our global outsourcing programme for example, which is anchored in the office of the Vice President.

“Tapping into the GPO network and create a platform from which we are doing now where young Nigerians can work from Nigeria but will be servicing countries and companies in other countries and earn the US dollars that everybody is running out to get.

“I think that is also up to a great start, we are partnering with one or two private sector and the World Bank. We just launched a programme in Gombe State where the Governor contributed significantly to the setting up of infrastructure for GPO resources, we trained initially 500 young men and women, and as I speak to you, barely a week ago about 100 of these 500 finished their training and are now working for companies overseas.

“In Abuja here, there’s a company that is employing close to 3,000 young people now, in Abuja, Kaduna and Lagos, that are working for the company. So you don’t need to leave the country to make your own contribution. Like I told you, it’s a global economy, it’s intertwine, it’s almost borderless, don’t be surprised that there are people out there also working for companies in Nigeria,” he noted.

On her part, Health Capital Development in Nigeria’s Acting Coordinator, Hajia Rukaiya el-Rufai explained that the vision includes: adding 24 million healthy (under 5 years old children surviving and stunted) educated (completing secondary school and productive (youth entering the labour force by 2030.

According to el-Rufai, some of the 16 initiatives rolled out under the HCD 1.0 include: assisting SMEs financially and technically, improving access to job market information, revising curriculum and methodology of teaching to a more directive style, and improving teacher development and performance management, amongst others.

While reacting to the Japa syndrome, Hajia el-Rufai who noted that the present administration has identified new focal points while not losing sight of the set objectives of the HCD 1.0, said: “On the people running out of the country, we are hoping that it will give rise to ‘YAPA’.

JAPA is leaving but YAPA is coming back. So, we are trying to pull people back by encouraging people to stay.

“It’s very important that people have access to quality healthcare, people have access to education and even their own children, social security and social services that are of good quality.

“When you look at one of the drivers of JAPA syndrome, it because people feel that they do not have access to these things. So, what we are saying is to invest in human capital.”

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by Kehinde Akintola