For a company run by a team of young Nigerians & Ghanians, Bolt’s growth in the West African sub-region is quite commendable.
Launched in 2016, the ride-hailing company has taken less than five years to dominate the mobility sector with the perfect blend of efficiency and innovation.
With an average age of 26 years old, Bolt’s young team is an example of the average youths’ exceptional talent and ability to contribute to the economy when given the opportunity.
Interestingly, as the company provides opportunities for youths in its internal team, its service also provides earning opportunities for young Africans.
This allows them to enjoy the flexibility of driving on Bolt while earning supplemental income. This conscious advocacy for youth empowerment aims to contribute to Nigeria’s socio-economic growth considering its youthful population and potential.
With a special focus on Nigeria, according to the African Development Bank’s (AfDB) regional economic outlook report for 2020, Nigeria’s expanding youthful population offers a strategic workforce that can be harnessed for employment and economic growth.
The report further states that Nigeria, among other nations, will have the largest proportion of working-age populations by 2050. However, there is still a mutually increasing unemployment rate due to the country’s population size and availability of labour. The Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reports that as of the fourth quarter of 2020, the unemployment rate among young people (15-34years) was 42.5% up from 29.7% in the third quarter of 2018.
What Bolt offers is an opportunity for hardworking Nigerians to create something tangible for themselves. With the flexibility to be their own boss, without commitment to strict working hours, young Nigerians have the freedom to retain their main employment and supplement their income as a driver on the Bolt platform.
This resilience and can-do spirit of the average Nigerian youth has inspired about 70% of Nigeria’s population to self-employment.
Odey Xavier Ayaga, a young Nigerian and driver on the Bolt platform who won a car in the Bolt Mega Bonus Challenge in early 2020, recently talked about how driving on the platform has strengthened his entrepreneurial drive. Xavier uses his proceeds from driving on Bolt to invest in a small agriculture project he plans to go into in about a year or two fully.
This is not the only small business Xavier has been able to generate capital for, and he also owns a computer café which his younger siblings run. The story is just a little different for hundreds of other young Nigerians driving on the platform.
While some occupy a full-time job and operate on weekends, others drive on Bolt as their main source of income. What is, however, the same is that they are all provided with the opportunity, which they utilise quite well, to earn more sustainable income.
By empowering the youth with sustainable opportunities, the country’s growth becomes paramount in the drive for long-term socio-economic advancement. This is also in line with Nigeria’s outlook for its young people. The country is committed to ensuring decent and productive work for young people. Nigeria is Africa’s first government partner to commit the Global Initiative on Decent Jobs for Youth.
This commitment is evident in 2020 published Nigerian Youth Employment Action Plan (NIYEAP) 2021 – 2024, which confirms Nigeria’s resolve to tackle youth employment and contribute to national and global development goals.
The NIYEAP for 2021 to 2024 also aims to address the unemployment situation in the country by focusing efforts on priority areas with huge potential for the creation of decent jobs for youth. According to the employment action plan, one of the priority areas is the service sector, which contributes about 54% to GDP and accounts for almost 45% of the working population.
The service sector has potential for job creation and income generation for the youth and innovation, which has led to the rise of the gig economy. A 2020 International Labour Organisation (ILO) report on tackling employment in Africa suggests that the continent is likely to see rapid growth in the gig economy, which is essentially a labour market made up of freelance or part-time jobs instead of full-time or fixed contracts jobs.
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An excellent example of this is the ride-hailing service, which provides more job opportunities for Nigerians and contributes to the country’s GDP, aside from getting people from one location to another. In Nigeria, Bolt is one of the leaders driving this growth with its ride-hailing service and the recently launched Bolt Food category, another innovative solution by its young team.
This advances the position of Nigeria’s gig economy and empowers young Nigerians, which in the end, contributes to boosting the local economy. It is established that the youth constitute the most productive component of a nation’s population, and the economic development of a country directly relates to the level of youth development in the economy.
Given these pointers, the youth is regarded as an indispensable building block in planning for sustainable economic growth and development of any society.
Nigeria’s tech industry continues to enhance productivity for young people while fostering economic growth. There is a continuous need to tap into its resources to prepare for the future. Bolt recognises this as a company efficiently utilising technology to solve mobility and food delivery challenges.
Earlier in 2021, Bolt unveiled a program to encourage the participation of young women in the technology industry. The Drive for Women in Technology (Drive4WITech) initiative was in recognition of international women’s day and supported young women with internship opportunities at Bolt.
According to Femi Akin-Laguda, Bolt Country Manager, by establishing the initiative, Bolt ensures capacity building for young women and shows support towards Nigeria’s advancement by enabling the young population.
The success of the internship and the achievement of the organisation reflect its people and process. The agility and fresh ideas inspired by their youth have redefined the mobility sector and seek to do the same in the food delivery space.
As a corporate citizen of Nigeria, Bolt is contributing to entrepreneurship and access to better earnings while solving mobility and food delivery challenges in the country. However, more needs to be done by other organisations to supplement the efforts to boost Nigeria’s economy. If Nigeria must forestall irregular migration and security crises affecting the youth, more opportunities must be created.
