Deputy Director of the Office for English Speaking West Africa at the International Labour Organisation (ILO), Dennis Zulu suggested in an interview, “a lot of African countries, Ghana inclusive have very big informal economies and a lot of the young people look at the informal economy for jobs because they cannot get a formal job.
“The current pace of employment in Africa is insufficient to meet to the demands of a growing youth population.” According to Brad Smith however, Microsoft and its partners remain positive that the ‘TizaaWorks’ project “will make a real difference, in a positive way, for the lives of tens of thousands of youth across Ghana.
“With TizaaWorks we have an opportunity not to solve every problem; no single tool, no single company, no single partnership can solve problem, but I do believe it creates an opportunity to make a difference in solving an important part of this problem.
“We at Microsoft are very excited about it for two reasons. First, it uses technology on new ways, and that’s what we do… we really regard our mission as a company, to as being one of empowering everyone person in every organisation on the planet to achieve more and so if we think about it in that way TizzaWorks is a great example of technology that can empower people to go out and achieve more in their lives.”
On her part, Ghana Country Manager of the International Institute for Communication and Development, Martine Koopman indicated that the TizaaWorks platform offers any young person in Ghana the opportunity to access information and services enabling them to become employable.
Ghana’s Deputy Communications Minister, Ato Sarpong also pointed out the project was coming at an ideal time as government has just inaugurated the Eastern corridor fibre optic backbone project in the Volta regional town of Ho.
The 800km-long fibre optic project runs through 27 districts and municipalities in the Upper East, Northern and Volta regions. The Minister said he was optimistic that the ‘TizaaWorks Project’ will go support government’s aims of championing youth employability and development in the country. In the final analysis, Microsoft will assess the project’s success using two main metrics; “number of people who use the site and the number of people who find jobs by using the site,” according to Brad Smith.
TizaaWorks is a national platform for youth in Ghana to access relevant services for employability and entrepreneurship, including career planning, online courses, support for entrepreneurs, open job vacancies, and information about relevant on-the-ground activities and youth centres. - See more at: http://citifmonline.com/2015/05/22/microsoft-and-iicd-join-ghanas-unemployment-fight/#sthash.RjQmi0vz.dpuf
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