On Thursday, Mozambique inaugurated an employment center and youth incubator in the city of Pemba, Cabo Delgado province, in the north of the country, a venture that was helped by Portugal.

According to Lusa, the center, which began operating on Thursday, will offer vocational training courses in the areas of electricity, carpentry, construction, plumbing, human resources, business administration and cooking.

The source says that the incubator will be a space with skills for beneficiaries to learn how to develop business projects aimed at self-employment.

The Secretary of State for Youth and Employment, Osvaldo Petersburgo, argued that the project will expand the range of technical and vocational training opportunities for young people in Cabo Delgado, in a context where unemployment is pointed out as one of the factors that favors the recruitment of young people by armed groups operating in the province.

Petersburg called on the managers of the center and the incubator to maximize the quality of the infrastructure, guaranteeing excellent training for the trainees.

It is not the expectation of those who have invested resources in this center that the Mozambicans who come here to train will be poorly served," said Petersburgo, quoted by Lusa.

For her part, Patrícia Pincarilho, from the Portuguese embassy in Mozambique, pointed to the creation of job opportunities for young people in Cabo Delgado as the major gain that will be achieved with the operation of the center and the incubator.

"It's a project that aims to increase the economic opportunities of the population of Cabo Delgado, particularly young people, helping to improve access to decent work and income," said Pincarilho.

He stressed the importance of training in professional skills that will enable the beneficiaries to become part of the value chain of natural gas extraction and production in the Rovuma basin, which is located in Cabo Delgado province.

Cabo Delgado has been facing an armed insurgency for five years, with some attacks claimed by the extremist group Islamic State.

The insurgency has led to a military response since July 2021 with support from Rwanda and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), liberating districts near the gas projects, but new waves of attacks have emerged in the south of the region and in neighboring Nampula province.