Programme Director
Ms Reeta Roy - President and CEO of the MasterCard Foundation
Distinguished speakers and panelists
Youth delegates
Invited guests and members of the media
I would like to applaud the MasterCard Foundation and its CEO for allowing us to host the inaugural Young Africa Works Summit here in South Africa.
We hope to extend to the more than 300 delegates who are participating here not only our well known hospitality, but also the knowledge, skills and interventions that we have employed to address the big challenge of youth unemployment.
It is about time that we devise ways and means to turn the more than 200 million young people in the continent into human capital that will drive the economy to grow and be the engine for the achievement of the targets set by the African Union's Agenda 2063.
This inaugural Young Africa Works Summit must contribute into making the many initiatives that are there in the continent and the world turn the youth into a demographic dividend that Africa so urgently and desperately needs.
For this to happen, we not only need committed leadership and effective institutions and policies, but we need such initiatives from the private sector and industry to accelerate the project of ensuring that Africa realises its potential
The hosting of this inaugural Summit in South Africa is also timely as we are battling with mobilising resources for the provision of quality, public, free education for young people as a response to the student-led protests in the last few days.
Government will in the course of this week announce interventions that will outline how we will expand access to higher education as this has proven to empower young people to make a difference in their lives, get employed be economically active in various forms.
The genuine protests that took place over the last few days in South African and for some time in the continent are not isolated to this Summit, and in fact should be the central issue that a Summit such as this addresses.
In a world where developmental economists have been encouraging Africa as a continent to move more towards rapid industrialisation and beneficiation of its mineral resources and bring to an end the extractive neo-colonial relationship that it has with the world, it is pleasing that we still have initiatives that seek to drive young people towards the agricultural economy.
I applaud the MasterCard Foundation for having set-aside US$300 million to projects that are driving agricultural productivity, and for opening up this platform of interaction amongst industry experts to deal with youth unemployment in the continent. It is perhaps apt to call on all governments in the continent and others in the private sector who makes business here to match this contribution and ensure that they contribute to youth development.
The 2008 global economic crisis had a huge impact on the continent with young people being affected the most. In countries such as South Africa, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Egypt, youth unemployment has been at its highest with figures close to 45%.
The economic crisis affected the continent the most because of its dependence on financial and development aid from developed nations, and the absence of institutions and regulations to insulate it from such a collapse.
Even though the crises was caused by exogenous factors such as the collapse in the US and the EU financial markets, the impact was felt more here in the continent than any other part of the world and were exacerbated by prevailing endogenous factors including structural and policy limitations.
It is in the continent that we have witnessed youth revolts as a result of the effect that they felt from the economic crisis, especially in the north, with other regions being no exception, leading to a change in governments in several countries.
If the economic situation that young people are faced with does not change, then their attitude and actions will also be no different as indicated in the recent past.
Many in the private sector believe that it is solely the responsibility of governments to address the situation or face the consequences, whereas we have seen that it is not only governments that collapse, but also the entire system that collapsed.
It is therefore a collective responsibility of all of us to ensure that we turn the situation around.
Over the last few years, Africa has been experiencing high economic growth rates. Although some have argued that this has been from a lower economic base, the fact is that this growth has not led to the creation of employment, greater economic participation and in making poverty and inequality in wealth and incomes history.
I understand that this Young Africa Work Summit will be dealing with technical and financial support to help young people venture into the agricultural sector value chain. However, it is equally important that we address the policy, political, economic and social space that has led to where we are and what needs to be done in order to correct the situation.
In 2008, through the leadership and influence of the Pan-African Youth Union, the African Union Commission endorsed the African Youth Charter as a means to commit Africa's Heads of State to a common youth development agenda.
This was followed by the adoption of the "Decade Plan of Action for Youth Development and Empowerment” adopted in 2011 July in Malabo.
Placing this on the agenda is an important step by African leaders to show realisation of the crisis of youth development and the need for commitment in involving young people towards their own development.
Both the declarations by African leaders highlight the need for support for initiatives that will enable young people to participate in the economy through employment, education, skills development and entrepreneurship which is the core of our National Youth Policy.
We have to use this Summit as a platform to ensure that this commitment by African leaders and the commitment showed by the private sector, works in relation to taking advantage of the agricultural sector. What are the issues that need to be looked at and that can pave a way forward in this regard?
Access to land and interest in agriculture
For young people to work the land, they have to have access to the land. Even after many years post-colonialism, land ownership by young people, and by Africans, still remains a controversial issue. Efforts by governments have been thwarted by a multiplicity of factors, including agreements reached in the process of post-colonisation; using market related mechanisms to facilitate transfer of land; failure to meet agreements for financing of land redistribution by the mother country and resorts to violence as a means of redistribution in response to political pressure by governing parties.
Because the land has in the process become an object of exploitation and colonisation, many young Africans were alienated from actively working the land. Lack of funding and non-financial support such as mentoring, capacity and knowledge also attributes to the lack of interest in working the land. With the development of technology, agriculture can no longer be regarded as hard labour; however, even where there is access to land, many young people cannot work the land beyond subsistence farming as long as they cannot have access to the much needed technology that is mostly accessible through imports.
These are the things that I believe you will be able to tackle. Through the National Youth Development Agency in South Africa and other government funding programmes, for instance, we have shown that if we deal with these factors we can be able to get the youth potential deployed in agriculture.
Existence of Monopolies in Agriculture
Commercial agriculture in the continent has been strangulated by competition and monopolies both internally and externally, and has led to Africa's agricultural produce not doing well locally and internationally compared with imports from other continents that are highly subsidised. The lack of access to technology has led to inefficient use of agricultural and human resources and therefore higher costs of production that has had a huge impact on the continent. In South Africa the agricultural sector has been dominated by big local and global monopolies. This has led to the Competition Commission to deal with matters involving price collusion, unfair exclusions in terms of access to fertilisers, preferential treatment to monopolies by the retail sector due to quantity and pricing. Again, the problem of institutions being able to interpret policy and implement it in defense of small entrepreneurs in the sector is a big issue. How do we deal with all of these?
Labour Laws and Wages in the Sector
There is a projection that the agricultural value chain will lead to more than 8 million jobs being created by 2020. Many have argued that the labour regime in the continent, especially in the South, are not flexible and therefore poses a challenge in terms of employment creation. We have seen the long protests in 2008 in the wine industry here in the Western Cape, which has exposed the meager wages of $100 a month for a farm worker. In many of these arguments, there has never been an issue raised about how contradictory these laws are towards international conventions.
If we are to interest young professionals to be innovative and have an interest in working in the agricultural sector, they have to earn a living from their work to augment the limited state investments in their socio-economic development in their countries.
Encouragement and Support for Agricultural Entrepreneurs
There should be thousands of young people throughout the continent studying agriculture as a science, and many of these, once they qualify, should be encouraged to work the land as entrepreneurs. This means that we need a pool of financial and human resources to help them to succeed in their endeavors. Such interventions and initiatives should go beyond what they have learnt at universities and colleges, and beyond facilitating market access, and should be about them running a business throughout the whole value chain. There are already institutions existing that seek to link innovation, science and technology together with research and technology.
These should be exploited to ensure that young people lead in the conception of such new knowledge in agriculture and are encouraged to become creators of jobs, rather than seekers of jobs. Entrepreneurs would not only be concerned about technology and innovation, but also about protecting the environment and ensuring that agriculture becomes sustainable and land can be reused for further reproduction. We have seen how in the past human needs have somewhat become a priority with complete disregard of the air, the surface and the environment as a whole.
These are the four issues that I thought I should raise in setting the scene and allowing you to engage with them. They are not only about short-term interventions, but also about long-term interventions beyond 2020.
However, I will be doing a great disservice if I do not speak about what we are doing as a country in this regard, especially in promoting youth entrepreneurship.
Through our National Youth Development Agency (NYDA), young people are provided with grants to stimulate their entry into entrepreneurship. We started this grant programme because the evidence showed us that too few young people were taking up entrepreneurship.
So the programme helps to mitigate risk on behalf of the young person. The evidence has shown us that building a pipeline of entrepreneurs is important at all stages, from start-up, to small business development and to growth. This pipeline must have the necessary business development support along the way, demonstrating the necessary sophistication as young people start and grow their businesses.
Our Industrial Development Corporation, Small Enterprise Funding Agency and National Youth Development Agency, all state agencies, have cooperated together in a partnership setting aside R2.7 billion Rands (approximately $207 million) to fund youth owned enterprises. We encourage young people to take advantage of these opportunities.
We hope that this fund will create entrepreneurial legends in agriculture, agro-processing and other related industries.
Our Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries has implemented a bursary and internship programme recognising the need to skill young people in critical areas such as: Agricultural economics, Agronomy and Soil Science to name a few.
The Comprehensive Agricultural Support Programme also provides young farmers with access to training and capacity building addressing their skills gaps to enhance sustainability and profitability of their enterprises.
I have recently learned that on such occasion, and in meeting with experts, one has to put together a doggy-bag, aptly called the Take Aways. So what are the take aways from our message?
- We need more of these initiatives as a partnership between government, young in civil society and the private sector;
- We need greater government commitments across the continent to realise the Africa Youth Charter and Agenda 2063;
- We need to give young people access to land;
- We need a dedicated government led, industry supported and youth anchored programme for financial and non-financial support for youth businesses; and finally,
- It is not only the politics that will suffer when there is continued youth disquiet and unrest, but the whole of society, especially business. So youth development must be a collective effort.
I want to conclude by once again recognising the MasterCard Foundation's focus and effort on youth sustainable livelihoods. By making this inaugural summit possible, the MasterCard Foundation will contribute to unearthing the young African voices, illuminating the good and best practices for sustainable youth livelihoods and will expose policy makers and practitioners to opportunities within the agricultural sector - a sector that we often mistake for subsistence farming.
I invite the MasterCard Foundation to work with the South African government as we tackle our youth employment crisis. Your experience, your resources and your thought leadership is welcomed here.
On behalf of the South African government and our people, I would like to warmly welcome you to our shores and I wish you productive deliberations at this Summit.
Thank you.
