The federal government says it is open to collaboration with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to achieve its goal of creating meaningful employment opportunities.

Muhammad Dingyadi, minister of labour and employment, said this when he received a consortium of NGOs, led by its national head, Daniel Black. on Thursday in Abuja.

The consortium of NGOs is part of the United Nations NGO Committee on Social Development.

Mr Dingyadi expressed the government’s readiness to collaborate with the civil society organisations in generating creative ideas on how to create safe jobs for its citizens.

He said the jobs include the blue collar jobs for the unemployed, particularly the youth.

“The federal government’s objectives, as well as initiatives, in this area are to ensure that people get jobs they can call their own.

“Also, jobs that they have tried to establish on their own; not white collar jobs but jobs that can generate a lot of employment for our youths.

“Our mandate is to create opportunities for jobs and to ensure the youths of the country are gainfully employed through several other means of engagement.

“We can collaborate to work towards creating jobs, very safe jobs for that matter, for our dear young men and women in the country,” he said.

On his part, Mr Black, the leader of the group, said that they would be attending the 63rd session of the United Nations Commission for Social Development scheduled for February in New York.

Mr Black said they would be sharing Nigeria’s social development experience at the event.

He said that in preparation for participation in the session, they would hold a United Nations Social Development workshop in Abuja.

He said the workshop was to foster collaboration between the government and civil society organisations, to increase and improve the social development indicators in Nigeria.

“At the end of that workshop, we are going to develop a report that we will be presenting in New York during the 63rd session of the United Nations Commission for Social Development.

“The report will highlight the reality of social development in Nigeria, and we will also be mentioning the roles that different parastatals and government ministries are playing to ensure that these social development indicators are improved,” he said.

He invited the ministry to the workshop to share insights on its activities to positively impact social development indices in the country, and the strong connection between labour, employment and decent work.

(NAN)