Honourable Speaker,
The Youth Employment Accord presents the best and most viable solution to the youth unemployment crisis in the country. It does so because of its call to all social partners for a collective effort at addressing the youth unemployment crisis. The Accord recognises that no single actor will be able to make a dent on this bleak picture of youth unemployment in the country let alone eradicate it. The Accord represents the outcome of a broad-based collective agreement that links skills development to job creation. This is precisely what is required if we are to make young people more employable and therefore increase the chances of success for placement opportunities.
There is no silver bullet to the youth unemployment crisis. Nor will millions of jobs for youth be created over night. The best we can do, given the nature and extent of the crisis, is to develop a plan that seeks to create as many jobs as we can in the short term with a medium and long term strategy for sustainable change. Part of the new vision of the NYDA is to begin efforts at developing a broad based Youth Employment Strategy for 2055 with the aim of halving youth unemployment by 2055. The Youth Employment Accord should in the meantime assist with coordinating efforts at job creation through education and skills development.
There are over 7.5 million young people between the ages of 14 and 35 years who are not employed and not in any learning institution. The Youth Employment Accord seeks to make a meaningful contribution towards the creation of five million jobs by 2020. It was signed on 18 April 2013 by Government, organised labour, organised business as well as community and youth formations. The Accord proposes three distinct but interconnected work streams. The first includes the identification of immediate areas of action, the second includes the identification of additional areas of action and targets, and the third includes the commencement of discussions on the constraints in the economy that hinder job creation and inclusive growth.
Importantly it contains a set of six commitments that all social partners have subscribed to. These include the commitment to education and training, the commitment to work exposure, public sector measures, private sector measures, youth target set-asides and the sixth commitment to youth entrepreneurship and youth cooperatives.
In terms of the first commitment to education and training, emphasis is placed on second chance matric programmes for those who have not passed or have obtained poor results, expanding the intake of FET colleges, developing stronger roles for Sector Education and Training Authorities or SETAs and expanding the targets in the National Skills Accord including for State-owned companies.
In terms of the second commitment to work exposure, emphasis is placed on enhancing the labour centres and career fairs of the Department of Labour, the introduction of focused internships for government departments which will allow for 5% of the total employment of the departments. As well as the need for state-owned companies to create placement opportunities for FET and Higher education students as part of completing their studies and finally private sector work exposure programmes such as vacation programmes, summer internships, job shadowing, etc. With respect to the third commitment for public sector measures, the aim is the increase the number of young people employed in the public sector. The state is the largest employer in the country with more than 1.3 million employees. Through coordinating and scaling up existing programmes such as the National Youth Service programme of the NYDA, the aim is to make young people more employable for uptake into the public sector.
There are currently more then 138 000 young people enrolled into the NYDA’s National Youth Service programme. More young South Africans need to enrol into the National Youth Service so as to inculcate a culture of youth service to displace the prevailing culture of entitlement and dependency.
The commitment on public sector measures calls for the Expanded Public Works Programme and the Community Works Programme to absorb 80% of new entrants from the ranks of young people. It also calls for health brigades, green brigades and literacy brigades of young people to be established under the National Youth Service programme of the NYDA. These brigades will assist young people to find employment in environmental programmes, home-based care programmes and literacy programmes. Other areas of focus will include the establishment of maintenance brigades to maintain public sector assets and premises that are not currently being maintained.
The fourth commitment on youth target set-asides speaks to the need for youth to be considered in particular industries. Examples include the solar water heating programme which should be a youth focused sector supporting youth cooperatives and youth-owned enterprises. The green economy should have a 60% target of labour intake drawn from youth and the infrastructure programme to target at least 60% youth employment for new projects and activities with training opportunities. The Business Process Services sector, including call centres, where a target of 80% of new employment should be explored and aimed for.
The fifth commitment of the Accord speaks to the need to promote and support youth entrepreneurship and youth cooperatives. Emphasis is placed on the need to develop dedicated programmes for support of youth enterprises and youth cooperatives. The Department of Trade and Industry through its Cooperative Incentive Scheme and the NYDA through its Youth Cooperatives Fund have partnered to assist 10 youth cooperatives comprising of 100 young people to setup fish and chips cooperatives across the country. More of these initiatives are required to assist the development of youth cooperatives.
The soon to be implemented partnership between the NYDA, Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) and Small Enterprise Finance Agency (Sefa) for the support of youth entrepreneurship through loan funding in excess of R2.7 billion is another example of state entities partnering to do more for youth entrepreneurship. The commitment also emphasises the need to simplify the registration of cooperatives and youth enterprises, technical support for enterprise development and support with demand for products, e.g. in school nutrition programmes and other such procurement programmes. The Accord also calls for the use of the BBBEE Codes to strengthen private and public sector commitments to improve youth employment creation.
The sixth and final assurance on private sector measures emphasises the need for private sector entities to expand the intake of young people in employment opportunities. The private sector has a very important role to play especially on the supply side of employment creation. More job opportunities need to be created for young South Africans by private sector companies. The NYDA supports the Youth Employment Accord and will play its role in coordinating the efforts of all social partners aimed at job creation for young South Africans.
Honourable Speaker, media reports that the new NYDA has not kept to its promises are incorrect. As promised, the NYDA will be launching its first new programme on 1 August 2013, only five months after coming into office. This programme is part of the new strategy of the NYDA as adopted in April 2013 and the new vision of the NYDA that is to be a credible and capable agency for South Africa’s youth. The new strategy focuses on five key areas of youth development with Education and Skills Development being our new core business, complimented by efforts at Economic Participation, Health and Well-Being, Policy and Research as well as Governance and Administration.
Spread across each of these five areas, are seven flagship programmes to be rolled out during the course of the year. These flagship programmes will serve as tangible deliverables emanating from the new strategy and will be comprised of current and existing programmes. Current programmes such as the YouthBuild Infrastructure Development Programme, with a target of training 2 000 young artisans in the next financial year, are being intensified. Two new YouthBuild sites were launched during this youth month as part of the NYDA programme. The first, in partnership with the Department of Human Settlements, was launched right here in the Western Cape, the NYDA launched a YouthBuild site in Langa on the 8 June 2013 which saw 100 young people register to be trained as young artisans and in the process contribute to the building of 76 houses in the community itself.
A further 100 young South Africans were enrolled into a YouthBuild Programme in the community of Escort, KwaZulu-Natal to build approximately 100 homes in the area and receive similar training in the construction industry. The NYDA has furthermore launched the Thusano Fund with an allocation of R2 million to assist young people or youth organisations with once off assistance. The first beneficiary of this fund was the Soweto Association of People with Disabilities who received once off assistance for learning material for the 61 young people who currently attend the school. The Solomon Mahlangu State Scholarship Fund has also been launched during this month of June to encourage young South Africans to excel in education.
The NYDA has allocated R10 million towards the scholarship fund with a target of only assisting 150 young South Africans. Through partnerships forged with Institutions of Higher Learning and working together with the Department of Higher Education and Training we hope to grow this fund in the next three years. Of course, only progressive media houses chose to report on such meaningful programmes launched by the NYDA during this youth month. The intensification of the YouthBuild programme during this June month will be followed by the launch of the Mabhida Youth Cooperatives Fund in July and the new Grant Programme in August.
Allow me to speak more into the much anticipated NYDA Grant Programme for Young Entrepreneurs. The aim of the programme will be to give young entrepreneurs who wish to start a small business a bite at entrepreneurship without having to fall into debt if they do not succeed. Young entrepreneurs will be able to access financial and non-financial support to establish and sustain their survivalist enterprises. The programme will focus on young entrepreneurs, who are at the conceptualisation phase, nascent or new stages of enterprise development.
The NYDA Grant Programme will be constructed on a firm business development support ethos. Business development support and mentorship are the catalysts to young people attaining knowledge and growing their survivalist businesses into well-established enterprises. The programme will therefore take the shape of idea first then business development support, followed by mentorship, and lastly grant funding if required. In this way we hope to support 37 000 young entrepreneurs in small business development over the next financial year.
This is the best that we can do working within our means. The two streams of the grant programme will focus on micro-enterprise development and cooperatives development. If funding is required, it will be limited to a minimum of R1 000 and a maximum of R100 000 in the form of a grant. The NYDA plans to support Small to Medium Enterprise (SME) development requiring funding above R100 000 through the much awaited loan financing partnership with the IDC and Sefa.
This partnership will ensure that we do not neglect SME development but rather work together as state agencies to do more with less. This integrated and more holistic form of loan financing will ensure that the R2.7 billion ring fenced by the IDC and Sefa for loan finance to young entrepreneurs will be accompanied by business development support or mentorship provided for by the NYDA. The NYDA Grant Programme combined with the Loan Programme by the IDC, Sefa and the NYDA will ensure that government provides a complete and comprehensive suite of support for youth entrepreneurship in the country.
Honourable Speaker, as the newly appointed board of the NYDA we are here to serve the youth of the country. We are here to make the NYDA a credible and capable agency for young people. We want the NYDA to be a beacon of hope for all youth. The progress we have made in the last few months is tantamount to what we can achieve if we work together. However, our progress as the NYDA seems to be feared by some who see such progress as a threat. Our progress as the NYDA should not be feared or viewed as a threat but rather embraced as an opportunity. An opportunity for all social partners to join us and work together for improving the lives of young South Africans. We welcome all parties to be part of this change for meaningful and sustainable youth development.
I thank you.
