Selection Nigeria
Hello Tractor
Hello Tractor is an agricultural technology company that came into the market to solve the problem of access to reliable and affordable mechanisms in Africa. Our project, The Mechhub, is an extension of our goal to solve this problem together with the youth unemployment problem in Nigeria.
The Problem
The problem in Nigeria within the agricultural sector is the insufficient number of tractors to support farming. In Nigeria there are less than 7,000 tractors that need to support 38 million farmers, which means there is one tractor for over 5,000 farmers. As a consequence, many farmers do not have access to reliable mechanisation such as tractors.
Further challenges are youth unemployment. In Nigeria, 24,5 million young men and women are currently either unemployed or underemployed. This underemployment is higher in rural areas than in urban areas since many workers rely on subsistence agriculture. A total of 71% of the workforce resists in the rural areas. But the lack of decent employment opportunities in the agricultural sector in Nigeria does not meet the aspirations of youth, and on the other side there is a lack of skilled labour in the mechanisation value chain. This is creating a disruption in the labour market regarding the demand and supply of labour.
The Solution
Our Hello Tractor Mech hubs Project, focusses on training in-demand skills to Nigerian youth and matching them to employment opportunities in the agriculture sector. With our project we want to face the challenge of youth unemployment and provide access to affordable and reliable mechanisation.
We will do this by creating hubs, which will in turn have a training centre, mechanic’s workshop, a spare parts dealerships and a large agent network that will be responsible for aggregating the farmer demand for tractor services.
Our goal is to provide employment to 2,165 youth in rural areas of which 42% will consist of young women. We will equip these youth with in-demand skills through several different training programmes. As a result of our project, our goal is that of these 2,165 youth, 700 will be matched to employment opportunities, 576 will improve their income and 889 will take up new work opportunities.
Additionality
With the support of CFYE, the project will be better designed, proceed more quickly and reach more young people than it otherwise would have.
With the CFYE funding and support, we can implement a larger number of skills development initiatives. Additionally, their expertise in youth empowerment, education, employment and inclusion will help us by providing useful support that will go a long way to increase the impact of our project on youth in Nigeria.
