Programme Director,
Dr Spio Garbrah, Former Minister of Trade and Industry in Ghana
Ms Thembi Siweya, Deputy Minister in The Presidency
Ms Pinky Kekana, Deputy Minister for Communications
Dr Shakira Choonara, the AUYC Board member
Dr Ahlem Afraoui, President IOLG
Ms Beatrice Mutali, Head of SA UNFPA office
Syam Prasad Ankala, CEO for the State Bank of India
Mr Ravi Shanker, Vice President, HR & Establishment, State Bank of India
Distinguished Guests and Delegates
Ladies and Gentlemen
And most importantly the youth gathered here today
Good day
On behalf of the government of South Africa, I wish to convey best wishes in the spirit of unity of both the Government and the people of South Africa for hosting of this World Youth Summit. I officially welcome you all to this three-day summit. It is hoped that within these days, you will commit and contribute effortlessly to the main aim and goals of this summit. The government finds influence in decision making from these kinds of platforms.
Allow me to convey the apologies of Deputy President, His Excellency, Mr. David Mabuza who could not be here today due to prior commitments. The Deputy President pledges his full support for this World Youth Summit. He also wishes to convey the belief of the government and the people of South Africa that investment in youth development and ensuring that youth form part of all decision-making bodies at all levels is of paramount importance. Evidence of this can be found in the composition of the configured Department of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, Parliament, Parliamentary Committees and oversight bodies. Moreover, Deputy President Mabuza wishes for you to know that the voices of youth are critical to the determination of the trajectory of South Africa.
It is a great pleasure as South Africa to be the 2nd host of the World Youth Summit (WYS). It is indeed an inspiration to see that young people across the globe, are stepping up for their development and are fully involved in decision-making.
In line with Nation Development Plan version 2030 goal of creating a better South Africa, contribute to a better and safer Africa in a better world, South Africa’s youth sector has been part of the global community since the dawn of democracy. This is evidenced by the adoption of the United Nations (UN) World Programme of Action for Youth; ratification and signature of the African Youth Charter; adoption of the AU African Youth Decade Plan of Action 2009-2018 – a roadmap for the effective implementation of the goals and objectives of the African Youth Charter.
Distinguished delegates, South Africa has been participating in various international events such as BRICS, SADC, AU and G20. However, having been a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and chairing other UN agencies, our observation is that youth have very little interaction with or even know what the mandates of such agencies are. Therefore, hosting this event will create awareness and provide an opportunity for involvement and interaction of South African youth with other young people across the globe. It is also envisaged that the summit will provide the youth with exposure to the simulation of the seven (7) diversified committees of the United Nations, namely:
a) United Nations Security Council (UNSC);
b) 1st General Assembly Disarmament and International Security Committee (DISEC);
c) United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC);
d) United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO);
e) United Nations Development Programme (UNDP);
f) United Nations Women (UNW);
g) United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF); and
h) the African Union (AU).
This would indeed be educational since young people as today and future leaders would be preparing themselves as diplomats representing their countries in different UN committees and special agencies. Indeed our work is not only to focus inward but to look outward for solutions from all corners of the world because if we are to truly learn from each other, we must embrace the concept of a global village Focus on Youth Development
The summit is further evidence to prioritisation of the youth development by our country and the globe. We are cognisant of the fact that, very soon, all these young people, will assume leadership roles, like all world’s leaders and policymakers. Let us prepare them for the challenges they will no doubt confront. As the current leadership, we have a moral responsibility to level the playing field and to create conducive avenues for young people’s investments since they inheritors of the development agenda we are presently debating. Therefore, skilling them to assume these important leadership roles would enable them to become professional skilled human resources that are capable of leading their respective countries, continents and the globe we aspire to have.
Ladies and Gentlemen, in South Africa, like the rest of the continent, out of the total population of about 58,8 million people in the country, about 42% are young people aged 14-35 years. However, these youth continue to be plagued by various socio-economic challenges such as lack of skills, teenage pregnancy, substance abuse, unemployment etc.
In order for us to make significant gains in creating an inclusive economy we have to have a paradigm shift. Currently, the country is investing more in quality education as stipulated in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 4, as a sustainable solution in response to these challenges. This Goal is aligned with the second pillar of the National Youth Policy 2015-2020 and one of the seven priorities of the 6th administration, which provides for Education, Skills and Second Chances. All stakeholders across sectors are responsible for ensuring that quality education reaches young people irrespective of their geographical areas, race and genders are guided by the existing types of machinery and policies to deliver quality work thus minimising the level of illiteracy in the country.
Young people also bear the greatest brunt of social and socio-economic challenges, such as poverty, crime and apathy. These are caused partially by the poor or slow growth of small businesses, high levels of youth unemployment, high level of unskilled or inexperienced youth, gender-based violence, alcohol and substance abuse and limited or/and lack of developmental opportunities. The situation is worse, particularly in relation to youth who are based in rural or semi-rural areas and small towns.
Addressing this situation urgently is critical since young people are the large proportion of the unemployed both domestically and at the global level. In South Africa, the latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey (Quarter 1: 2019), reported that the youth aged 15–24 years are the most vulnerable in the labour market, with the unemployment rate among this age group at 55,2%. Among graduates in this age group, the unemployment rate was 31,0% during this period, compared to 19,5% in the 4th quarter of 2018 – an increase of 11,4% quarter-on-quarter.
This persistently high unemployment suggests a lack of effective policy interventions and coordination. To date, policies that have been implemented have largely been supply-side initiatives aimed at the structural causes of youth unemployment.
Key populations like the LGBTQIA+ Community remains an area of concern where women, non-gender conforming youth and persons with disabilities with differing sexual preferences face
compounded discrimination and exclusion from programmes of the government, labour market opportunities and the media.
Key to transformation for these communities is the change in the material conditions in the lives of youth. If we are to achieve Vision: 2030 we must develop people’s capabilities through access to quality education, healthcare and basic services, access to labour markets, transforming ownership patterns, and access to land. Addressing the challenges faced by the youth The gravity of the challenges faced by the youth requires multi-pronged efforts that simultaneously promote the development of sustainable livelihoods; reduce poverty and inequality; and prioritise the formulation of policies which create an enabling environment for youth development. I would like to therefore, invite international inter-governmental agencies and young people across the globe, to partner with the South African government and young South Africans in coming up with innovative solutions as well as providing needed resources that will support the nation’s youth development agenda. This would certainly require the creation of spaces for the cultivation of their unbridled imaginations and bold initiatives that will help to deepen effective response to youth’s challenges. This platform, undoubtedly, provides an opportunity for young people to come up with innovative solutions geared towards ameliorating the identified challenges.
In this area, the work of the National Youth Development Agency must be recognised. I won’t get into details but suffice to say that the NYDA has set their sights to ensure the expansion of the National Youth Service to take on 50,000 young people a year; Expansion of initiatives such as the Youth Employment Service to enable young people to gain paid workplace experience; and the roll-out of small business incubation centres to provide youth-driven start-ups with financial and technical advice.
The Department is also in the process of finalising the Youth Mainstreaming Guidelines for youth responsive planning, budgeting, monitoring, evaluation and auditing to aid all government stakeholders in meeting youth empowerment priorities outlined by the President. The Youth Mainstreaming Guidelines are aimed at intensifying government-wide responsiveness to youth development across all levels of society. They would advocate for the linking of allocation of adequate resources for youth development and empowerment to broader public finance. The Youth Mainstreaming Guidelines would soon be tabled to Cabinet for approval. “The current people who’ve got skills need to be reskilled and people also need to be upskilled. So we now need to look at the skills revolution in a new way and make sure that our people do get skills and in many ways it will require a lot of investment, we will need to invest but we also need to look at the transition support for working people in their transition, so that there is just transition as people lose jobs, we must know that there will be a just transition," said President Ramaphosa during the Fourth Industrial Revolution summit.
The words uttered by the President illustrate the need to focus at programs such as the Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator, National Rural Youth Service Corps programme and the Youth Employment Services which are generating meaningful solutions to the unemployment rate. The Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator has built a network of 600, 000 young people and worked with 500 businesses to deliver 125,000 jobs and work experiences while Youth Employment Services aims to empower one million unemployed youth by offering them the first chance at quality paid work opportunity. We continue the clarion call especially for big businesses to budget for the inclusion and development of these new entrance because without an adequate budget, they will not succeed.
Programme Director, In the words of President Ramaphosa in his State of the Nation Address, “If we are to successfully address the challenge of poverty across society, we need to provide skills and create economic opportunities for persons with disabilities.
Disability must never condemn families to perpetual poverty. Likewise, poverty must not present a face of disability.
We will work with key government departments and social partners to develop and implement programmes that target jobseekers with disabilities registered on the National Employment Support Services database, the NYDA database as well as those receiving disability grants. Interventions must increase the percentage of enterprises owned by persons with disabilities who have access to public and private procurement and production value chains; and expand the employment of persons with disabilities in the public and private sector to be equitable to population demographics by 2030.
South Africa recently recognized South African Sign Language as its 12th Official Language. From here we need to introduce South African Sign Language into school curriculums and ensure that youth with disabilities can fully integrate with communities.
Furthermore, I importantly invite you to make contributions to the review of our National Youth Policy since its term is ending in 2020. It has been four years since NYP2020 has been developed and approved to guide youth development stakeholders. The current review process seeks to ensure that the youth policy responds to the current, new and emerging challenges. Your contributions would be invaluable given that national strategies must complement those at the global level. In this regard.
The support of the United Nations system is then critical to the achievement of the National Youth Policy, because it is aligned to the realisation of the National Development Plan (NDP2030); the UN World Programme of Action for the youth and the African Youth Charter. Effective translation of all these youth-responsive policy instruments would deepen investment in youth and help prevent persistent discrimination based on age, gender equality, and freedom from biases of class, race, ethnic, sexual, disability, caste etc.
Delegates, it would be shortsighted of me not to comment on the unacceptable levels of violence perpetrated against women, by men. Although South Africa made strides in uplifting women in the country, despite this progress, GBVF remains unacceptably high. Cultural, religious, social and economic factors play a role in driving GBV. The primary targets of GBV as victims are women and adolescent girls, but not only are they at high risk of GBV, they also suffer exacerbated consequences as compared with what men endure. As a result of gender discrimination and their lower socio-economic status, women have fewer options and fewer resources at their disposal to avoid or escape abusive situations and to seek justice.
Gender-based Violence is the most horrific actualisation of inequalities and patriarchal systems. Young women face sexual harassment in school, at tertiary institutions and the workplace. Men in senior roles solicit sexual favours in exchange for promotions, favouritism, and negotiated work duties. Young women are raped and murdered every day in South Africa and globally. I hope that this summit looks at prevention and support systems for young women to speak out against men who prey on women. Gender-based violence and femicide is a global phenomenon and it requires global solutions. I trust this Summit will address this burning issue as a priority area.
Conclusion
The President has categorically pointed out that our topmost priority as a country must be to address the issue of high youth unemployment, employability, lack of appropriate job-related skills; and provision of job opportunities to grow the economy. Our shared responsibility, as government, business, labour and civil society, is to develop pathways for young people into work.
The Department of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities will continue to monitor implementation of commitments made and further ensure that no fewer than two million new job opportunities for young people are created within the next decade.
With the foundation laid by this World Youth Summit, I am confident that young people across the globe have a bright future ahead. I urge you to share your imaginations, abilities and determination to seize the available opportunities in resolving the challenges facing the youth. Like many of you, I have high hopes for youth-led solutions.
I thank the organisers of this event for this great initiative and wish you all the best for the next three days that you have planned to gather and divide yourselves into committees to unpack the issues affecting young people. Always bear in mind that you are making and shaping the world for a greater change. We look forward to partnering with all of you in creating a habitable globe we want.
Addressing the World Bank Conference in 1997, the former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said “Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family.” I wish you the very best in your deliberations in this information-sharing session and trust that you will have an educational experience.
Enjoy everything South Africa has to offer!
I Thank you!!
