German Chamber, AFOS Foundation, Others Move To Address Skills Gap In Nigeria’s Agric Sector

AFOS-NIG INGO, a German non-governmental organisation providing technical supports to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and agribusiness owners in Nigeria, has met with institutions and chambers of commerce responsible for the German Vocational Education and Training (VET) to enhance the technical and operational capacities of farmers and agribusiness owners in the country.

The meetings with the German Institutes, Chambers of Commerce and other agencies were held as part of the programmes of the 9-day AFOS-led Nigeria agribusiness stakeholders’ visit to Germany.

Speaking about the meetings, the AFOS Foundation’s Chief Executive Officer and Country Representative, Mr. Oladipupo Akoni, said that members of the delegation, comprising 17 representatives drawn from agro-allied companies, Chambers of Commerce and Industry and relevant federal government’s ministries and parastatals, were excited to learn from the technical trainings by the German institutions and chamber, which would enhance their skills and productive capacity.

According to him, during delegation’s visit to the Bundesinstitut fur Berufsbildung -BIBB (Federal Institute for Vocational Training), which addresses the issues of development of labour and training market in Germany, the team was excited to learn about the German Vocational Education and Training (VET) system, its structure and historic foundation, as well as the key success factors of the institute.

Akoni explained that the BIBB pilots projects in TVET to improve the quality of TVET programmes, and increase participation in TVET, data collation on VET Statistics, training regulation etc because they have all the data and information on TVET.

In addition, he spoke on the experiences of the Nigerian delegation during the visit to Industrie- und Handelskammer -IHK (The German Chamber of Commerce) where the learned about the roles and efficacy of chambers in Germany.

The AFOS Foundation’s Country Representative also spoke on the economic roles of the 78 Chambers of Commerce and Industry in Germany, usually referred to as Competent Body, including their roles in the implementation of VET at the district level through trainings while also representing the interest of their members, helping their companies to find young people to be trained, and resolution of employer-employee conflicts, amongst others.

Akoni said that facilitating the Nigerian delegation’s visit to Germany was part of the Foundation’s aims to improve the efficiency of local agricultural value chains, increase food production, and create a skilled workforce within Nigeria.

He said: “Thus, our Agriculture project has three core pillars: capacity building for smallholder farmers, for the agricultural industries/companies and for banks that lend to/finance agriculture.

With the agriculture industry partners, our focus is predominately more on the poultry value chain and the partners are all represented on this exposure trip.

“Our agricultural interventions consist of management training and vocational training, the focus now is more on dual vocational training because we are trying to help establish an innovative strategic framework to develop a skilled Agric industry workforce”, the Country Representative added.