The newly appointed Board of the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) has concluded its one month intensive induction and strategic planning programme. The board has since held two official Board meetings on the 30 April 2013 and the 10 May 2013 to process key decisions relating to the work of the NYDA.
In the last month the Board has had the opportunity to interact with all 14 of the organisation's branches, staff, overall capacity and state of the NYDA. We are convinced that it will certainly be three years of hard work to restore credibility to the NYDA in the eyes of young people. However, there are many products, services and programmes that have had great success and remain relevant. Such programmes include the current JOBS database, the YouthBuild Infrastructure Development Programme, our Business Development Support Programmes and our Career Guidance Programme. The Career Guidance Programme alone has made an impact on the lives of more than 556 000 young people over the last three years.
In acknowledging that not all is wrong with the NYDA, much change is needed for any meaningful progress going forward. With this in mind, the newly appointed Board of the NYDA decided to hit the ground running by immediately convening a strategic planning session between 8 to 10 May 2013 in order to shape a new vision for the NYDA. The new vision of the NYDA is "To be a Credible and Capable Development Agency for South Africa’s Youth."
According to the NYDA Executive Chairperson, Yershen Pillay, “This new vision is informed by the need to restore credibility to the NYDA and to be adequately capable of delivering as many opportunities, as is possible with our resources, to the youth of South Africa.”
The NYDA Board have shifted the core business of the NYDA away from Enterprise Finance and Skills Development towards Education and Skills Development. The strategic change towards Education and Skills Development is informed by the numerous studies indicating that most young people in the country actually derive their income from salaries and remittances. In fact only 4.6% of young people between the ages of 15 and 24 derive their income from business related activities. Salaries remain the main source of income for young people which underscores the importance of employment as a source of livelihood for the youth of South Africa.
The studies further indicate that the level of education and the quality of that education is directly proportional to employability. The new plan of the NYDA will therefore focus on tailor made interventions for job preparedness and placement, a focus on scholarship provision for those who excel in schools, the scaling up of the YouthBuild Programme for out-of-school youth, the increase of second chance opportunities for matriculants and the intensification of our highly successful career guidance programme. As a result 40% of the NYDA’s financial resources will be redirected toward Education and Skills Development interventions for young people.
The NYDA will continue with efforts directed at economic participation offering a range of products, programmes and services to young entrepreneurs in need, albeit as a secondary focus. The fundamental change in this area of development is the change from loan provision to grant provision for young entrepreneurs. The NYDA will no longer be offering loan finance to young entrepreneurs, instead grant finance in the form of micro-finance grants for survivalist youth entrepreneurship and cooperative grants for greater participation of youth in the cooperatives sector. The grant finance will start from R1 000 to a maximum of R100 000 for any individual or youth cooperative. Due to the financial constraints of the Agency just over 37 000 young entrepreneurs will be supported over the next year.
“While not every young person who walks into one of our branches should expect to receive support as our current capacity is limited, we do plan to work together with other state agencies such as the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) and the Small Enterprise Finance Agency (SEFA) to ensure that as many young people as possible are able to access the R3 billion or so worth of loan finance that has been made available for young entrepreneurs especially small and medium enterprises,” said Yershen Pillay. “We hope to complement the loan finance offered by the IDC and SEFA with business development support and mentorship in order to improve the chances of success for young entrepreneurs. In this way we will continue to support SMEs that are youth owned in a more integrated and holistic way working together with the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) and Sefa.”
The NYDA will also have a greater focus on health and well-being as young people can only be productive and confident if they are healthy, of sound mind and mentally secure. In this area, the NYDA will act purely as a facilitator so as not to duplicate the work of other government departments, civil society organisations.
The other two areas of focus shall be on policy and research development as well as good governance and administration. The two main on-going projects in this regard will be the establishment of a Youth Development Institute for research and the development of a Youth Employment Strategy for 2055 with the aim of halving youth unemployment by 2055.
In essence the NYDA’s key performance areas have been reduced from ten to five as this is more realistic and achievable in the context of scarce resources. The plan is to leverage on partnerships in the public and private sector fuelled by the new drive at restoring credibility.
“We encourage the private sector in particular to see the optimism and passion in the new leadership of the NYDA and contribute meaningfully to our noble cause of sustainable livelihoods for the youth of our country,” said Yershen Pillay
The Board has also requested a report on the R2.4 million that was disbursed for the funding of the South African Youth Council Congress. The aim of this report is to simply understand exactly what this money was used for.
According to Yershen Pillay, “As the Executive Chairperson, mandated by the Board of the NYDA, I have written to the Office of the Public Protector requesting the immediate release of the report into the WFDY festival so that the matter can finally be brought to rest. The NYDA needs a fresh start.”
The Youth Month Programme is in the process of being finalised and will be ready for communication towards the end of May.
“The vision for the NYDA has never been clearer. We know what is required in a very short space of time and we confident as the new leadership that the Agency can only get better and support as many young people as possible in the next three years. However we remain steadfast that only the youth themselves can drive this change that we want to see. The youth must lead and the NYDA will support in all these areas that we have outlined,” said Yershen Pillay.
For media enquiries contact:
Nawhal Kara-Foster, NYDA: Office of the Executive Chairperson
Cell: 084 894 2213
Tel: 011 651 7000
E-mail: nawhal.kara-foster@nyda.gov.za
