The Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr Rob Davies says South Africa has been in dire need of a youth-specific employment strategy that will effectively deal with the excessive levels of unemployment. He was speaking at the launch of the Youth Enterprise Development Strategy (YEDS) and the official opening of the Micro Enterprise Development Organisation (MEDO) Youth ICT Incubator in Johannesburg, today.
According to Minister Davies, government has realised that it needs a package of measures that will address this problem and create more employment opportunities for the youth.
The YEDS aims to promote youth self-employment and youth-owned and managed enterprises that will ensure that young people actively participate in the strengthening and growing of the economy.
Davies said the YEDS is government’s response to a call made by the New Growth Path (NGP) for the state to provide bold, imaginative and effective strategies to create millions of new jobs that will also address youth unemployment and limited participation of young people in the economy.
“What we have learned is that two-thirds of our youth entrepreneurs are self-taught and are informal. For our strategy to be effective we need youth targets set aside in priority sectors and what is important is for us to strengthen the capabilities of these informal businesses.
As a response, the Department of Trade and Industry (the dti) has set itself the target of increasing the percentage of youth managed start-up businesses from 5% to 50%,” he added.
The launch of the Youth Enterprise Development Strategy (YEDS) coincided with the launch of the Micro Enterprise Development Organisation (MEDO) Youth ICT Incubator which has been funded by the dti Incubation Support Programme. MEDO is one of the thirty incubators supported by the dti incubation programme.
“We are trying to bring a major change in how business is being done in South Africa. We want to create an environment where local small suppliers can be so well capacitated that they would be able to supply our private sector, doing away with their dependence on imported goods. The ultimate goal is to see our entrepreneurs producing value-added products that would compete with the import influx,” said Davies.
MEDO CEO, Ms Judi Sandrock said since its inception, MEDO had done away with barriers to entry into the ICT market.
“To date we have had more than eight-hundred entrepreneurs that have gone through our programme, and with the support from the dti I can confirm that we are in a favourable position to take in even more aspirant entrepreneurs through our doors,” she said.
Enquiries:
Sidwell Medupe, Departmental Spokesperson
Tel: 012 394 1650
Cell: 079 492 1774
E-mail: MSMedupe@thedti.gov.za
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