The World Bank has said that only states that had been involved in job creation and poverty reduction schemes in the last two years would benefit from its $300 million-counterpart fund targeted at employment generation for the youths.

Speaking at a two-day orientation workshop for key staff of the Youth Employment and Social Support Operation (YESSO) in Abuja,  the Task Team Leader/World Bank Country Director for the initiative, Mr. Foluso Okunmadewa, said the pilot phase of the initiative would begin in seven states including, Kwara,Cross River, Bauchi, Osun, Ekiti, Niger and Oyo.

He said currently 20 states had indicated interest in the scheme while only seven of them had been adjudged to take part in the initial phase of the exercise. He added that the World Bank and the federal government teams would evaluate proposals from more states.

"So in six month's time, we expect to see another round of about 10 states joining. We are looking at youth employment and support to poor households to improve the human capability of their children and make them employable," he explained.

YESSO, which is funded through the World Bank assistance to complement government efforts, was designed to boosted by contributions at the federal and state levels of the federation in relation to various policies driven towards youth employment and providing assistance to the poor household across the country.

The World Bank Director explained that: "A state that doesn't have a budget for this kind of assistance is not going to be able to tap from the resources from the World Bank."

Also, the National Project Coordinator, YESSO, Mr. Peter Papka, said: "One of the things this intervention is helping us to do is that we are getting additional resources to leverage on what government is currently doing. And we see this resource as a way of expanding on the scope of benefits and the impact that we expect to see because youth unemployment is a major issue that needed to be dealt with."