Mastercard Foundation: Partner Convening and the Drive to Provide Jobs

In a move that would majorly impact the youth population and lift the nation’s economy, the Mastercard Foundation’s corporate social responsibility philosophy, which focuses on job creation, has started yielding results with the commitment of partners within the private and public sectors. Raheem Akingbolu reports.

At the beginning, the announcement and the buildup to the 2025 partner convening looked like a tall dream. But as a foundation that had invested well in research to know where the shoes pinched and had consistently impacted the society, the management of Mastercard Foundation had their eyes fixed on the ball and pursued their goals with vigour and precision. The objective was clear, and the approach was well mapped out. Welcome to the 2025 edition of Mastercard Foundation Nigeria Partner Convening.

The venue was Jewel Aeida in Lekki, Lagos, where selected youths from various geo-political zones of Nigeria were gathered to learn, share experiences, network, and tap opportunities. From tech to agriculture, fashion to entrepreneurship, the participants all came prepared with determined minds to leave the two-day event as changed agents to explore the world and contribute their quota to the economy.

The Partner Convening is an annual event that brings together the Foundation’s partners, stakeholders, and collaborators to reflect on progress, share insights, and explore opportunities to deepen impact. This year’s theme focused on “Six Years of Impact: Building on Progress, Shaping Work for the Future”

On day 2, there was a spotlight on the role of all stakeholders in shaping the future of work for young entrepreneurs that the foundation and its partners program for. Among others, the session featured panel sessions with key stakeholders in government parastatals and development partners.

There were also conversations with young entrepreneurs driving change in their communities. One of them was a young lady, Augusta Ezenwa, a Chartered Accountant based in Kano, who has since ventured into Agribusiness. In one of the sessions, Ezenwa spoke with passion on how Agriculture has turned her to an employer of labour and opened her eyes to the opportunities abound in the nation’s agricultural sector.

“Though I’m a chartered accountant, I derive pleasure in agriculture, and it’s paying my bills. With this platform provided by Mastercard Foundation, I have not only learnt more things about entrepreneurship, but I have also been exposed to more opportunities and boosted my contact base. For youths who are passionate about building and sustaining their businesses, this platform has deepened our knowledge and built our confidence that we are indeed on the right path.” she stated.

Another brilliant young Nigerian who spiced up the event was a young University of Lagos 500 level Mechanical Engineering student Saheed Azeez. The young man made a name for himself and the entire country recently after creating two million GPT tokens and built an artificial intelligence (AI) text-to-speech model with a Nigerian accent.

According to Techpoint report, Azeez had earlier in 2024 created Naijaweb, a dataset of 230 million GPT-2 tokens based on Nairaland. In a world where AI can generate lifelike voices in seconds, a text-to-speech model with a Nigerian accent might not seem revolutionary at first. But the young man has rewritten the story and recorded a remarkable feat.

Addressing youths in their hundreds at the event, Azeez said he was motivated by failure and other factors, because prior to his starting YarnGPT, he had applied for a job at a Nigerian AI company but did not perform as well in the interview as he had expected.

YarnGPT became the project that would help him improve his skills and increase his chances of securing such roles in the future.

Building an AI model that sounds Nigerian requires gathering a vast amount of Nigerian voices.

“I used some movies that were available online. I extracted their audio and subtitles. The problem with building in Nigeria is data. Replicating what has been built overseas isn’t that hard, but data always gets in the way,” he explained.

During an interview session with THISDAY, he commended Mastercard Foundation for instituting a platform that would help Nigerian youths live their dreams and called on other organisations in Nigeria to invest in such initiatives

The high point of the event was the announcement by Federal Government on plans to partner with the Mastercard Foundation and other key development partners to establish a credible national employment database that will track employable youths across the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory.

Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Hon. Nkeiruka Onyejeocha, who disclosed this, said the initiative reflects the government’s renewed commitment to tackling unemployment and promoting inclusive economic growth.

According to her, the partnership is a key component of the Federal Government’s renewed agenda to collaborate with organisations such as the Mastercard Foundation, which has made remarkable contributions toward boosting entrepreneurship and job creation. The effort, she noted, aims to provide training opportunities, match skilled youths with available jobs, and engage retired professionals in national development programmes.

Hon. Onyejeocha explained that the partnership seeks to create a comprehensive, data-driven system capable of identifying, profiling, and monitoring employable youths across various sectors.

This, she said, would enable the government to better understand labour market dynamics and design targeted interventions for skill development and job creation.

As part of the plan,she said the Federal Government intends to work closely with private sector organisations not only to enhance job creation at the ward level but also to ensure the establishment and smooth functioning of employment hubs across all 774 local government areas in the country.

She stated that the hubs would serve as one-stop centres for job registration, career counselling, vocational training coordination, and employment linkage services. The centres, she added, would also facilitate collaboration among government agencies, private sector employers, training institutions, and community-based organisations to ensure that job opportunities are effectively matched with available skills.

Onyejeocha emphasised that one of President Bola Tinubu’s eight-point agenda priorities is employment and job creation, encapsulated in the Labour Employment and Empowerment Programme (LEEP), which targets the creation of 2.5 million jobs annually. She appealed to the Mastercard Foundation to work closely with the federal government to achieve this goal.

Earlier, the Country Director of Mastercard Foundation Nigeria, Rosy Fynn, reaffirmed the organisation’s commitment to partnering with the Federal Government through its Young Africa Works strategy, which aims to create 10 million dignified and fulfilling jobs for young Nigerians by 2030.

Fynn noted that the convening was crucial for gathering collective insights that would help the Foundation and its partners enhance entrepreneurship and job creation across the country. She further reiterated the Foundation’s determination to support the government in harnessing the potential of Nigeria’s youthful population, reducing unemployment, and creating a sustainable pathway for inclusive national growth.

In his keynote address, the Founder AI Centre of Excellence (AICE), John Kamara, urged the Federal Government and private sector leaders to take urgent steps to equip youths with job-ready skills to cope with the disruptive effects of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on the world of work.

Kamara, who is also the Founder of Adanian Labs and a leading advocate for digital transformation in Africa, warned that rapid advances in AI are redefining traditional jobs, creating new work models, and demanding entirely new skill sets. He stressed that this shift requires immediate and coordinated action from policymakers, educational institutions, and industry players to prevent worsening unemployment and inequality.

“Artificial Intelligence is not the future—it is already here.Across industries, AI is transforming how we work, learn, and produce. The question is whether our young people will be prepared to thrive in this new reality or be left behind,” Kamara said.

While acknowledging that AI presents vast opportunities for productivity, innovation, and economic growth, Kamara cautioned that it also poses significant risks to employment. He said the only sustainable solution lies in retraining the workforce and integrating digital literacy and AI education into national development plans.

He added that the nation’s youthful population could become its greatest competitive advantage if the right policies, funding, and training ecosystems are put in place.