The Portuguese ambassador to Mozambique has announced around €9 million in European Union funding for the second phase of entrepreneurship and employment stimulus projects in the provinces of Cabo Delgado and Nampula.
“A new stage of the project will begin soon, and we have great ambitions. We will, in partnership with the European Union, with the support of Instituto Camões de Portugal, carry out Mais Emprego 2, providing in practice around €9 million,” declared Ambassador António Costa Moura during the first final of the Mais Emprego project for young people in Cabo Delgado, a province that has been the target of attacks by insurgents.
The announced second phase of the Mais Emprego project should also be extended to the province of Nampula, also located in the north of Mozambique and the country’s most populous. Discussions to define when the initiative begins there are in the final phase.
“Portugal will always be present in an area as crucial as this [employment for young people], which is to provide young people with minimum conditions for carrying out a profession of learning and knowing how to do it,” Ambassador Costa Moura said.
The first phase of the Mais Emprego project, developed over the last four years in the province of Cabo Delgado, had support from the European Union of around €4.5 million, materialized by the Portuguese Government through the Camões institute.
The project’s goal was to encourage the creation of jobs for young people in the province of Cabo Delgado, having reached, revealed the ambassador of Portugal in Mozambique, 1,435 trainees, including 937 young people, 317 trainers and employment technicians, 181 technicians and managers from partner entities, 304 interns hosted by 39 companies and 149 young people who received self-employment kits.
“More than 50% of the young people covered improved their income thanks to the intervention of this project. Mais Emprego also supported 35 small and medium enterprises [SMEs] on their path to quality certification,” added Moura, describing the results achieved in a context of terrorist attacks that caused the retraction of megaprojects, affecting SMEs in that province.
Source: Lusa / Club Of Mozambique
