Remarks by Deputy Minister Buti Manamela on the occasion of the signing of the National Youth Policy 2020 - "Reflections on the journey towards the NYP 2020”, Cape Town
Programme Director, Mr Zamantungwa Khumalo,
Minister in The Presidency - Mr Jeff Radebe,
Executive Chairperson of the NYDA - Mr Yershen Pillay,
President of SAYC Thulani Tshefutha,
Khayelitsha Youth Development Council,
DDG of the Western Cape Government - Dr Laurine Platzky,
Invited guests,
Young people.
Today's signing of the National Youth Policy (NYP) 2020 is the result of many, many months of hard work. As a member of the United Nations, the Commonwealth and the African Union, the government of South Africa clearly supported the call for member states to develop National Youth Policies. We view the National Youth Policy as a guiding policy instrument to respond to the needs and aspirations of our youth and to address the critical youth development challenges that they face.
On 14 January 2015 I launched the consultative process for the National Youth Policy 2020 making a clarion call that every young person from all corners of the Republic must speak. They must own this youth policy formulation process and outcome.
I re-iterated that the National Youth Policy 2020 is about the youth, for the youth and by the youth of South Africa. Nothing for us without us. My call was rooted in my belief that young men and women have a critical role to play in their own development. Their views matter and their voices must be heard.
We directly engaged youth in provincial, regional and local consultations across the nine provinces. We went to schools, shebeens, taxi ranks, bus stations and workplaces speaking with young people. At the taxi rank in Marabastad, Central Pretoria, a young man was perplexed as he looked at me when I told him that I was from government.
“No ways, you are not from government. It's not elections yet” he exclaimed with a puzzled look on his face.
When we visited Park Station, the main train station in Johannesburg, I introduced myself as the Deputy Minister in The Presidency, to a group of young people. They were very surprised and some muttered: "What kind of Minister comes to a train station?”
We met with key youth formations from across our diverse youth sector. We received over 100 written submissions on the NYP 2020 from varied youth voices across the country. One verbal submission was from right here, in Khayelitsha. A young woman told me that we should pay young girls an amount of R200 as a reward for not getting pregnant.
We could not meet all young people face to face. So we used social media platforms extensively. After all, that is where most young people are found. We conducted a twitter-view on LiveSA and obtained more than 1 million impressions.
In 1 hour of a twitter-view we were able to reach more young people than in a single consultative meeting. Social media allowed us not only to speak with you but for you to ask us questions and receive prompt responses. All NYP 2020 activities were put on the Facebook and Twitter accounts of The Presidency to ensure that young people were always kept abreast of the consultative meetings happening in their area.
We reached about 100 000 young people with the # NYP 2020 campaign and got young people talking through the photos they took holding up boards and a message of what they want to see in the National Youth Policy 2020.
It was a rigorous process of engagement and I was wholly captivated by the depth of insight that our young people have about the South Africa they want and how to overcome the youth development challenges that we face.
Overwhelmingly young people told us that they want a hand up and not a hand out. They told us that they do not want to be passive recipients of government interventions. But rather, they are ready to be active partners in youth development. They are not looking for special favours from government. But instead, they want government to create that enabling environment which creates opportunity for them to grab and take hold off as they steer themselves down the development trajectory. Therefore the outcome of the NYP 2020 is "to produce empowered young people who are able to realise their full potential and understand their roles and responsibilities in making a meaningful contribution to the development of a non-racial, equal, democratic and prosperous South Africa.”
I have said to young people and youth formations that they have a key role to play in the implementation and monitoring of youth development. Government will continue to create the enabling environment for youth development. We expect young people and youth organisations to develop these opportunities and turn them into gold.
Young people must not depend on the charity of government. Instead they must be resources for their country, working with government as partners to create opportunity. As partners in their own development. This is the depiction of youth development that must prevail. This is real youth empowerment leading towards enhancing young people's capabilities and agency.
Opposition parties continually paint South Africa as a child limping along, with desolation all around her. A child with a chronic and in-curable illness and facing imminent death. These cynics would have us believe that no progress has been made in our twenty years of freedom. These critics want us to believe that doom and gloom are all around us. That our inevitable fate is failure.
Young people have told us the opposite. While acknowledging the stark challenges that we face as a nation, young people believe that the future is bright. They believe that South Africa is indeed a good story to tell and they are committed to making it a better story to tell.
As we sign the National Youth Policy 2020 today, this is the start towards implementation. We will work hard to implement this policy to its fullest. To monitor the implementation closely. To communicate its achievements extensively. And to celebrate its successes widely.
We called upon young people to re-imagine youth development. We called upon young people to stake their claim in the future of South Africa. They did not disappoint us.
And we will not disappoint them.
I thank you!
#NYP2020
