President Jacob Zuma today launched the Presidential Youth Working Group, bringing together government and youth organisations, to promote youth participation in governance and policy making in order to build a better life for young people.
Census 2011 revealed that just over a third of the South African population is under the age of 15, necessitating a heightened focus on youth development for government.
The President met with youth formations representing various sectors from education, agriculture, small business, sports, religious sectors, health and youth development.
The meeting signalled the launch of the Presidential Youth Working Group which is chaired by the President supported by Deputy Ministers led by the Deputy Minister for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation in the Presidency, Mr Buti Manamela.
Said President Zuma: "I have established the Presidential Youth Working Group to mainstream youth development and empowerment in the work of government. This group is also designed to enable young people to shape government policy by sensitising us to the impact of policies on the youth and the future of the country. In this way we are saying that youth development is now everybody's business. It is not to be pushed aside. Every government department must ensure that its policies talk to youth development".
President Zuma further acknowledged the wide-ranging consultation that preceded and subsequently formed part of the National Youth Policy 2020 that was presented by Deputy Minister Manamela.
The meeting discussed the National Youth Policy, which is anchored on the National Development Plan, aims to respond to four big challenges faced by young people.
These are; joblessness; poor skills levels; poor health care access including reproductive health care; a divided nation and the drug scourge.
The policy outlines initiatives and programmes that respond to these challenges which hinder our young people from taking charge of their destiny. These initiatives include:
- Capitalising on the R2.7 billion made available by both the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) and Small Enterprise Finance Agency to finance youth-owned enterprises
- Accelerating the implementation of the Youth Employment Accord of 2013
- Introducing interventions to provide unemployed and poor young people with income and opportunities for community service and engagement
- Ensuring that Youth brigades coordinated with the National Youth Service engage 1 million young people over a period of two years as per the New Growth Path. The Department of Basic Education working with private providers should support learners who need a second chance to pass matric and matric rewrite programmes should be supported and widely known.
- The Department of Higher Education must develop an articulation policy to harmonise education between schools, ABET centres, Community Colleges, TVET colleges universities and other providers of education and training.
President Zuma emphasised that the feeling of exclusion suffered by young people who have never held a job or even earned an income and thus still depend on their ageing parents means work to turn this around should begin now.
The meeting was informed that the National Youth Policy tell a frightening story that the absorption rate of young people is half that of adults; 36.1 percent young people between the ages of 15 and 35 are unemployed, which is almost double the 15.6 percent of adults aged between 35 and 64 who are unemployed; 34.5 percent of young women are neither employed nor at school, including further and higher education. Young people's risky behaviour leads to high morbidity and mortality rates -they face the highest HIV/AIDS infection rates.
HIV prevalence peaks in women aged between 30 and 34 years (36.8 percent). In 2013, 2 515 of the total 5 698 transport-related deaths in South Africa were young people. Similarly, 69 percent of deaths due to assault and 59 percent due to intentional self-harm occurred among those aged between 15 and 34 years.
"We must work with young people themselves to turn the picture around. I was very happy when the Deputy Minister confirmed to me what I always knew, that young people do not want hand outs but want to be enabled. They want to be given 'a hand up'. The initiatives to be prioritised by the Presidential Working Group should achieve exactly that'' said President Zuma.
The youth formations welcomed President Zuma's establishment of the Presidential Youth Working Group and pledged to work within the structure to mainstream and champion youth development. The young people further welcomed the adoption by Cabinet of the National Youth Policy 2020.
"Young people of our country welcome and are excited with the adoption of the National Youth Policy 2020 by Cabinet. As young people we can see our expressions through the consultations in the final document. The NYP sets the youth agenda for young people to be part of the solution”, said Mr Thulani Tshefuta, the. President of the South African Youth Council, the umbrella body of all youth formations.
The President said: "If we do all of this together, young and old, we shall be shaping young people to be active and productive citizens. If we harness the creativity, innovation and energy of the youth we could transform this country and indeed the whole continent”.
The Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation has established workstreams that will take the work of the Presidential Youth Working Group forward.
The workstreams are the following:
- Economic Participation and Transformation
- Education, Skills and Second Chances
- Health Care and Combating Substance Abuse
- Nation Building and Social Cohesion, and
- Effective and Responsive Youth Development Institutions.
Enquiries:
Harold Maloka
Cell: 082 847 9799
E-mail: Maloka.Harold@gmail.com
Matshepo Seedat
Cell: 082 679 9473
E-mail: Matshepo@presidency.gov.za
