University Don advocates new strategy to tackle poverty and unemployment

A former president of the National Economic Society, Prof. Joe Umo has proposed a new framework to tackle poverty and unemployment in the country
Professor Umo who was a speaker at the 53^rd Annual Conference of the National Economic Society in Abuja suggested the adoption of a frame work called the Investment for Poverty Reducing Employment Strategy.
The university don said the strategy developed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) allows investment in strategic areas of the economy and will create jobs that will translate to income and in the long run solve the problems of poverty.
Prof. Umo said “Nigeria’s policies on poverty and unemployment have simply not worked as a result of political instability and the inability of the programs to stand the test of time”.
He suggested the adoption investment strategy targeted at employment which will invariable reduce poverty.
He said the framework will work effectively than the over forty programmes and policies adopted by successive governments in the last thirty years which has yielded little or no results.
The theme of this year’s conference is “Youth employment and poverty reduction in Nigeria”.
The Minister of National Planning, Shamsudeen Usman who described the conference as timely and told the participants that youth employment forms a cardinal goal in President Goodluck Jonathan’s transformation agenda which he believes has the capacity to tackle poverty and prevent young people from embarking on criminal activities.
It was agreed at the gathering that Nigeria has enough policies  to tackle unemployment and poverty  but there is a need to consciously  transform these policies into actions and also monitor their progress especially in the informal sector which has a better capacity to tackle the high unemployment rate in Nigeria.