Business
UNDP Graduates 513 Trainees On Vocational Skills
An Italian-based Voca
tional Centre, Apurimac Onlus in Collaboration with the United Nation Development Programme (UNDP), recently in Jos graduated over 513 trainees in various vocational skills.
The beneficiaries were trained in hairdressing, tailoring, knitting, catering & decorations, GSM repair, shoe- making, and leather work as well as computer.
The UNDP sponsored 149 out of the 513 trainees with the support from the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Abuja.
The 149 trainees, who successfully completed a six-month skills training, were victims of conflicts in Plateau, whose source of livelihood had been affected due to the crisis.
Speaking at the graduation ceremony for the trainees in Jos, the Country Director of UNDP, Dr Pa-Lamin Beyai, said the organisation had been working with its partners to support the victims.
He said that the project was an intervention of the organisation, under its livelihoods support scheme funded by the Government of Norway.
According to him, the project is another UNDP’s efforts to cushion the impact of conflicts on the population in Plateau.
“The scheme attempts to empower these 149 persons including widows, female, and child headed households; youth, and women in seven vocational skill areas.
“ The scheme has the ultimate objective of promoting sustainable peace, social cohesion, and religious tolerance among the beneficiaries and by extension, the residents of Plateau State.
“We are happy about the good report from the Centre that despite their differences in age, social and religious backgrounds, the beneficiaries have related very well with one another throughout the training.
“We encourage them to continue after graduation, and be peace ambassadors in their communities,’’ he said.
The country director said that as part of the overall support package, each graduate was given take-off equipment grant worth N50, 000 for the trade areas.
“The computer graduates are given N100, 000 worth of equipment each.
Cornerstone of Financial Services
A survey of more than 1 000 global finance leaders undertaken by digital payment network Ripple shows that 72% of respondents believe they need to offer a digital asset solution to remain competitive.
According to Ripple, leaders from the banking, fintech, corporate and asset management sector have made it clear that the “digital asset revolution is happening now”.
“Digital assets are quickly becoming a cornerstone of financial services, underpinned by progressive regulation, growing interest from Tier-1 banks, a steady consumer shift from banks to fintech providers, and booming stablecoin adoption,” Ripple says.
The survey was conducted in early 2026 and the findings released in March.
Stablecoin Boon or Bane?
Ripple has experienced significant success in the stablecoin sector since launching its Ripple USD (RLUSD) stablecoin in 2024.
With a market cap of $1.56 billion, it is considered a major regulated player in the market.
No doubt the platform was pleased to learn through its own survey that financial leaders were most bullish about stablecoins.
Roughly three-quarters of respondents believed they could boost cash-flow efficiency and unlock trapped working capital.
Ripple noted that finance leaders were thinking about stablecoins as more than “just a new way to execute payments”; instead, they viewed them as effective tools for treasury management.
In March 2026, Ripple began testing a new trade finance model built around RLUSD in a bid to increase the speed of cross-border payments.
The pilot initiative, developed alongside supply chain finance company Unloq [https://unloq.com], is running on the XRP Ledger inside a testing framework developed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
The Asian city-state is one of the platform’s biggest growth markets.
The idea behind the project is to see whether stablecoin-based settlement can streamline trade finance, too often hampered by reliance on intermediaries and slow reconciliation.
The only potential drawback is that if the initiative takes off, the Ripple to USD price could be negatively affected.
Ripple has always championed its native XRP token as a bridge asset, the “middleman” in the process of a financial institution turning dollars in the US into pounds in the UK, for example.
Ripple converts dollars into XRP and then back into pounds.
If RLUSD can do exactly the same thing, questions will be asked about XRP’s relevance.
That is a bridge Ripple will have to cross if it gets to that point.
Tokenisation Partners
Another interesting finding from Ripple’s survey is that most banks and asset managers are seeking tokenisation partners to help execute their strategies.
Some 89% of respondents said digital asset storage and custody were top priority. “Token servicing/lifecycle management also ranks highly for banks at 82%, while asset managers place greater emphasis on primary distribution at 80%,” Ripple found.
The survey also revealed that just more than half of fintechs and financial institutions want an infrastructure provider that can offer a “one-stop-shop solution”. This rose to 71% among corporate financial leaders.
Ripple attributes this to institutions and firms wanting uncomplicated, cohesive systems.
Infrastructure Rules
In its final analysis, Ripple says companies across the board are looking for partners and solutions that are “secure, compliant, battle-tested and that enable growth and execution”.
“The message is clear: infrastructure decisions made today will shape competitive positioning tomorrow.”
No surprise that this is precisely where Ripple is placing much of its focus.
