sanusi lamido sanusi : supporting the development of entrepreneurship in nigeria keynote address by mr sanusi lamido sanusi, governor of the central bank of nigeria, at the launching of the south - south entrepreneurship development centre ( edc ), calabar, 2 september 2013. * * * protocol 1. 0 it is my honour and pleasure to address this audience on this occasion of the launching of the south - south zone, entrepreneurship development centre, located here in calabar, cross river state. the high - level turnout at this event, is an eloquent testimony to the commitment of nigerians to participate in worthy development efforts that hold promise for improving the lot of our citizenry, particularly the youth. 2. 0 it is evident that we as a nation are confronted with a wide range of developmental challenges. the 2012 general household survey conducted by the national bureau of statistics, revealed that 23. 9 % of the adult working population is unemployed. more worrisome is the fact that the unemployment rate has exhibited a worsening trend, rising from 8. 2 % in 1999 to the 23. 9 % in 2011. in cross river state specifically, the rate increased from 7. 9 % in 2002 to 18. 2 % in 2011. this would obviously not only have a significant effect on the psychology of the individuals concerned, but also have a destabilizing impact on the wider society. 3. 0 in its bid to support efforts to reverse these glaring development challenges, the central bank of nigeria has over the years, continued to partner with government at all levels and some stakeholders to initiate policies, programmes and schemes that will impact the lives of youth in the country. 4. 0 ladies and gentlemen, the main purpose of our gathering this morning is to officially flag - off the central bank of nigeria supported entrepreneurship development centre located in the south - south zone. the centre would be expected to serve akwa ibom, rivers, bayelsa, edo, delta and cross river states. consequently, it will advertise and enroll trainees from these states. 5. 0 this initiative commenced 2008 in three locations namely ; onitsha ( south - east ), kano ( north - west ), and lagos ( south - west ). between 2008 and 2013, the three centres have trained a total of 41, 828 persons, counseled 94, 259 entrepreneurs and have directly led to the creation of 13, 124 jobs. furthermore, a total

cf. mcginnity et al. 2013 ) on the distribution of labour market effects of the bust ( ibid. ), on the distribution of economic stress and material deprivation ( maitre, russell and whelan, 2014 ) and on mortgage distress ( mccarthy and mcquinn, 2011 ). the question of mortgage distress has indeed been the subject of a large body of data - intensive analysis at the central bank, much of it published ( cf. kennedy and mcindoe, 2012 ). the literature also has emphasised the role of the state in influencing the distributional impact on disposable income through tax and social welfare policy ( callan et al., 2013 ; maitre and watson, 2013 ). 2 so we do know a lot about changes in living standards, loan servicing and economic stress resulting from the crisis. but the somewhat different dimension which piketty has emphasised relates to assets and liabilities as distinct from income and expenditure – to stocks as distinct from flows : here we do have aggregate data, but little on its distribution. we would like to have, as indeed piketty includes in his book for many other countries and over a long time period, the size distribution of household wealth. in addition it would be valuable for the purposes of government policy to know about the distribution of the different elements of household wealth as between different income deciles, age categories, social class, educational attainment, occupational category or economic sector. but for ireland, apart from the early work at the esri ( nolan, 1991 ; honohan and nolan, 1993 ), no really systematic nationally representative survey of the distribution of wealth has been published. there are, of course, various partial analyses, for example the wealth data from the tilda survey of older people recently analysed by o ’ sullivan and layte ( 2011 ) and o ’ sullivan, nolan, barrett and dooley ( 2014 ), and the small 2012 central bank household survey focused on indebtedness ( mccarthy, 2014 ; mccarthy and mcquinn, 2014 ). happily, we will soon know more about the distribution of assets and liabilities of households, with the data cleaning phase now nearing completion from the household finance and cussen and phelan ( 2011 ) also discuss trends in the aggregate assets and liabilities of other sectors : government and financial and non - financial corporations. the latest data suggesting a broadly proportional impact of policy changes on all income groups, though with a somewhat higher