Seoul (Somalia Today) – LG Electronics, South Korea’s aid agency KOICA, and the United Nations Development Programme have launched a vocational training partnership in Somalia to help young people enter jobs in electronics, information technology, and repair services.
The agreement, signed on May 15 at the LG-KOICA Hope TVET College in Addis Ababa, will support the establishment of a new technical training and service hub at the Elman Peace Centre in Mogadishu.
The project will train Somali youth in electrical equipment servicing, ICT hardware and networking, multimedia systems, entrepreneurship and employability skills.
It comes as Somalia seeks practical ways to create jobs for a young population facing poverty, insecurity, and limited access to formal technical education.
“Somalia’s greatest asset is its youth,” said Lionel Laurens, UNDP’s resident representative in Somalia.
He said the partnership would combine “technical training, private-sector collaboration and peacebuilding” to help young people gain quality jobs and contribute to sustainable peace.
Ethiopia model
The Somalia project will draw on the LG-KOICA Hope Vocational Training School in Ethiopia, which LG and KOICA have operated for more than a decade.
LG said the Addis Ababa school has trained 611 graduates since 2014, all of whom have moved into employment or entrepreneurship.
The school provides free professional training in electrical engineering, electronics and IT, as well as entrepreneurship lessons in law, marketing and business management.
LG created the Ethiopia programme partly as a gesture of gratitude to Ethiopia, the only African country that sent troops to fight alongside South Korea during the Korean War.
The company will now share its curriculum, operating manuals, equipment standards and graduate employment support system with the Somalia programme.
Somali instructors will also train at the Addis Ababa school before returning to Mogadishu to lead classes.
KOICA said the first Somali intake will include 50 to 60 students, taught by 8 to 10 Somali trainers who have completed certified instruction in Ethiopia.
Graduates will seek work as repair technicians and service staff, or receive support to start small businesses in related fields.
Jobs and peace
The project forms part of KOICA and UNDP’s wider “Peacebuilding and Preventing Extremism in East Africa” programme, which has operated since 2024 in Somalia, Kenya and South Sudan.
The programme seeks to strengthen communities vulnerable to conflict and violent extremism by expanding skills, livelihoods and local resilience.
“This cooperation is a rare example of a Korean government agency, a UN body and a private company working together across borders,” said Wankyu Park, head of KOICA’s Kenya office.
“It will also provide Somali youth with practical opportunities to build their capabilities, and help lay the groundwork for long-term peace,” he added.
Somalia has one of the world’s youngest populations, but decades of conflict, weak state institutions and limited investment have left many young people without stable work.
Aid agencies have long warned that unemployment and exclusion can deepen youth frustration and make communities more vulnerable to instability.
UNDP and its partners say technical education can help address those pressures by equipping young people with skills aligned with real market demand.
Service economy
LG said the Mogadishu hub would also help build a service ecosystem for electronics, home appliances and ICT products in Somalia.
A KOICA official said the project mattered not only because it would provide young Somalis with vocational training and stable jobs, but also because it would establish a Korean technical education base in a country where official service infrastructure for Korean electronics remains limited.
“Through this, we expect to expand the technology and brand value of Korean companies, while also contributing to the development of technical talent and the creation of a service ecosystem in the electronics, home appliance and ICT sectors in Somalia,” the official said.
Seunghwan Yang, head of LG Electronics’ Ethiopia branch, said the company would carry lessons from Ethiopia into Somalia.
“By sharing in Somalia the success we have built over more than 10 years running the LG-KOICA Hope Vocational Training School in Ethiopia, we will fulfil our social responsibility as a global corporate citizen by supporting the self-reliance of young people in Africa,” he said.
UNDP said the partnership would link technical training to employment, entrepreneurship and peacebuilding, giving Somali youth a clearer path into the formal economy.
