Youth Economic Opportunities Conference: Nicardo Neil of The Competitiveness Company shares conference highlights

Insights from the 2012 Youth Economic Opportunities Conference

September 11-13, 2012 | Washington, DC

During Making Cents International's Global Youth Economic Opportunities Conference, Nicardo Neil of The Competitiveness Company spoke with Microlinks following his presentation at the session, "Catalyzing Youth Enterprise and Employment through Urban and Rural Value Chains."

The Competitiveness Company, a hybrid NGO based in Jamaica, provides economic opportunities primarily through entrepreneurship and training for young people and the unemployed. In this video, Neil shares what he learned from a session on monitoring and evaluation, highlighting a new technology for collecting data and survey responses through mobile phones, thereby reducing cost and effort. Monitoring and evaluation, often forgotten, is the most important tool for determining which methods are most effective. Neil also provides insights on the key innovation that will increase youth economic opportunities: the mobile phone. In terms of gaps and challenges for youth development, Neil cites the need to match existing skills to the projects people are trying to implement, instead of applying cookie cutter approaches from other projects or regions. Watch to learn more.

Bio: Nicardo Neil

Nicardo Neil has an MBA from the Mona School of Business at The University of the West Indies and has been trained by ITC/ILO in Enterprise Development through Value Chains and Business Service Markets. He is the Marketing & Project Manager at The Competitiveness Company, a private NGO in Kingston. The Company’s mandate includes the development of entrepreneurial opportunities for Jamaica’s unattached and unemployed youth. In his capacity, Neil has managed several market-driven initiatives targeting youth, most notably the development of urban ornamental fish farming clusters that provide opportunities to Jamaican youth to earn income by growing pet fish for export markets. Neil was a panelist at the Making Cents 2010 Making Cents Youth Economic Opportunities Conference, and has presented at the IDB’s Latin America and Caribbean Development Market Place Competition (2010).