The objective is to develop entrepreneurial spirit and skills among Mozambican children and youth at an early stage and equip them with the tools to be able to help themselves in generating income and jobs.

The launching ceremony of this four-year project took place in Maputo on Saturday, 9 June 2007, and Mr. Aires Aly, the Minister of Education and Culture, signed the project on behalf of the Government of Mozambique, Ambassador Thorbjorn Gaustadsaether, of the Royal Kingdom of Norway and Mr. Ndolamb Ngokwey, UN Resident Coordinator, on behalf of UNIDO.

It is expected that by December 2010, the entrepreneurship curriculum will have been introduced at all the secondary schools.

After completing a full course of entrepreneurship education, the students should also be able to:

- exhibit or display entrepreneurial attitude in whatever they are doing,

- spot and select feasible and viable business opportunities from their environment and

- carry out simple businesses successfully.

The project pays special attention to gender component. It supports increasing women’s participation in economic life, particularly in the process of the private sector development.

This project is based on the experience carried out in the northern region of Cabo Delgado since 2004. The pilot operation started with 4 schools and currently 41 schools and 11800 students are on board.

UNIDO will assist the National Institute for Education Development (INDE) to produce teaching materials and instructor’s manuals, train teachers and create capacities to introduce, manage and monitor the entrepreneurship curriculum programme in secondary and vocational schools. Mozambique is the third country where the entrepreneurship curriculum programme is being implemented after the successful introduction in Uganda; several other countries have requested the programme.

For further information, kindly consult “Voices of Future Entrepreneurs” at:

http://www.unido.org/filestorage/download/?file%5fid=55475

For more information, please contact:

Nelson Xavier, UNDP Communication Officer

Mobile phone: + 258 82 3140600

Office + 258 21 481438

E-mail: nelson.xavier@undp.org