The Ministry of Inner Cities and Zongo Development will, on Monday, December 3, sign two Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs) to train over 2,000 residents of Inner Cities and Zongo communities in employable skills.

The capacity-building programme is aimed at enhancing the skills of residents of Inner Cities and Zongo communities to be self-employed and improve the income of beneficiaries.

Mr Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, the Minister of Information, who announced this at a news briefing in Accra, on Sunday, said the first training was for the Zongo Coders Programme, which involves the signing of the MoU with a non-profit organisation known as the Initiative for Youth Development.

He said the programme intended to train up to 1,000 youth in computer coding and application development and facilitating their operations in the development of computer-based software and applications to tackle contemporary challenges as well as take advantage of the economic opportunities in their localities.

The Minister said the project would start with an initial 200 beneficiaries and later scaled up to 1,000 in the subsequent months.

“It is expected that the project will aid in creating self-employment and incomes for beneficiaries."

“The apps and technology services to be produced from the project are also expected to increase convenience and productivity for citizens in general. It will span a 24-month period,” Mr Oppong Nkrumah added.

The second programme, he said, was the Zongo Cuisines Development programme, which is a collaboration with the National Board for Small-Scale Industries aimed at providing technical and financial support to already existent small-scale business operators such as food vendors in Inner Cities and Zongo communities.

The programme, he said, aimed at assisting food vendors to access larger markets for their products by enhancing their already existing marketing, preservation and packaging as well as book keeping abilities.

The Minister said it had targeted an initial 600 beneficiaries in 2019 and another 600 in 2020.

Mr Opping Nkrumah noted that those Initiatives were in consonance with the President’s pledge to develop the capacities of residents in Zongo communities, which would improve their productivity levels and further reduce the hardships of the people.