About Us

The Nation Builders Corps (NABCO) programme is a government initiative to address graduate unemployment to solve social problems. The focus of the initiative will be solving public service delivery in health, education, agriculture, technology, governance and drive revenue mobilization and collection.

The objectives of the programme are to:

• • Provide temporary employment to unemployed graduates
• • Improve skills and employability for transition from programme to permanent employment
• • Improve public service delivery
• • Improve on government revenue mobilization
• • To provide needed infrastructure to improve access to basic public services

This new scheme – the Nation Builders Corps recognizes the role played by other pathways that currently exist under various government institutions and agencies. In a sense, NABCO ultimately offers a convergence for the employment initiatives landscape. Among the existing Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) with schemes addressed to youth unemployment include: the Ministry for Business Development, Ministry for Local Government and Rural Administration, the National Vocational and Technical Institute (NVTI), Council for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (COTVET), the National Youth Authority (NYA), and the Youth Employment Agency (YEA), and the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Plan (NEIP) to cite some examples. In particular, the YEA has affected, positively, the lives of many non-tertiary graduates through the innovative modules that have continued to engage lots of young people. In the case of the NABCO, the distinguishing element would be its concentration on addressing the growing phenomenon of unemployment and disillusionment among young people leaving tertiary institutions.

Under the programme, graduates will be trained, equipped with the necessary work tools and deployed around the country to engage in the following programmes:

• • Educate Ghana
• • Heal Ghana
• • Feed Ghana
• • Revenue Ghana
• • Digitize Ghana
• • Civic Ghana
• • Enterprise Ghana

The entry phase (the first 3 months) concentrates on soft skills through enrichment programmes. These shall entail elements of counselling, essential personal relations and professional training and skills development. The aim is to ultimately affect certain critical areas of national need such as public sector service delivery. In the overall transformation agenda, government’s strategy ultimately is to support growth and capacity of the private sector to provide jobs for all. In the short term, however, the focus is to provide temporary jobs for graduates within public sector institutions to stimulate productivity, efficiency and the promotion of mentorship and foundational skills required for future permanent employment. The initial focus of the initiative will be directed at improving public service delivery in health, education, agriculture, revenue mobilization and collection, as well as in the application of technology to tackle critical issues within major government programmes and initiatives.

 

In the build up to its twilight year (exit phase in year 3), an entrepreneurship, business development and exposure to the requirements of private industry would be the focus of the NABCO scheme. This final enrichment entails strategic partnerships with industry and private businesses and funds to allow ease of transitioning into regular and permanent employment. It is recommended that government supports the NABCO in this phase with some incentives to make fellows of the scheme attractive and a widely sought after group by the private sector. For instance, private enterprises could be signed on to the NABCO in a partnership that offers ultimately permanent work placements and jobs for exiting NABCO fellows. Similarly, a modulecredit scheme could work with partner skills training institutions (e.g. COTVET) to design an exit certification award that becomes recognized as a pathway to further learning and also employment.