Skills for Oil and Gas in Africa Programme Receives $1.45 million from BG Group

BG Group is investing $1.45 million over 5 years to help equip people living in East Africa with the skills needed to secure job opportunities in the emerging oil and gas sector.

The “Skills for Oil and Gas in Africa” (SOGA ) programme an initiative by the UK’s Department for International Development, the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation and the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development is being delivered by the German international development agency, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).

“This partnership breaks new ground, providing opportunity for local communities to gain the skills and experiences needed to access employment opportunities in and around the emerging oil and gas industry. Simultaneously companies will be enabled to respond to the strong expectations from host governments and societies,” says Ramanie Kunanayagam, BG Group Head of Social Performance.

SOGA which was launched in November 2015 will deliver training on-the-ground in countries, including Tanzania and Kenya, where BG Group operates.

“The SOGA initiative provides the opportunity for scale, leveraged funding and additional technical expertise that no single partner can provide on its own.  We hope through our partnership, we can jointly illustrate the value adding benefits from such a public private sector collaboration,” adds Ramanie.

SOGA’s vision is to significantly expand the benefits for local people and companies from new oil and gas development in East Africa by improving the local availability of required skills, goods and services.

It will enable local people to access jobs and economic opportunities expected to be generated in the supply chains associated with investments in the oil and gas sector in the years ahead.

“We are delighted that BG Group has joined SOGA and is contributing considerable funding to our projects across the SOGA target region and especially in Tanzania where it has interests. BG Group has shown strong support for the initiative from the start and we are very much looking forward to continue working with BG Group towards developing better skills and employment opportunities in East Africa,”  commented Sonja Palm, SOGA Programme Director, GIZ.

Partners include international oil companies, major suppliers and contractors, host governments and development agencies. SOGA facilitates industry-wide collaboration to ensure the development of relevant and high-quality skills in the local economy.

SOGA has said aims to increase jobs in the oil and gas industry by 32,000 35 percent of which will be women and 40 percent youth as well as raise the incomes of 240000 by 10 percent.

SOGA’s strategy and activities work through delivering support Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions by improving the quality of their training and ensuring relevance the demands of the oil and gas sector.