P Mlambo-Ngcuka: Youth Sector Consultative Workshop on Accelerated and
Shared Growth Initiative of South Africa

17 January 2006

Chairperson of the National Youth Commission, Jabu Mbalula,
Chairperson of the Umsobomvu Youth Fund, Malose Kekana,
Youth leaders from various formations,
Distinguished delegates,
Ladies and gentlemen,

This year will see the 30th Anniversary of the Soweto Uprising, which took
place on the 16th of June 1976, where the youth of our country were catapulted
to the centre-stage of the national democratic struggle. Since then the role of
the youth has gained new significance and the youth have played a leading role
in the struggle to liberate the country from the shackles of apartheid.

One of the outcomes of this leading role of the youth was that the majority
of the youth of our country saw the attainment of liberation as the most urgent
task. As a result, the late eighties and early nineties saw the development of
a concept of a marginalised youth.

With the dawn of the democratic dispensation in 1994, the marginalisation of
the youth had reached crisis proportions. Since 1994, however, the government
has embarked on a number of initiatives to deal with this legacy of youth
marginalisation.

Before 1994 South Africa had never institutionalised youth development
issues. The democratic government has worked hard to ensure that it reverses
that situation. The following are the steps the democratic order has taken to
ensure that youth development is part of the national transformation
process:

* The inclusion of youth development in the Reconstruction and Development
Plan,
* The setting up of Youth Commissions with advisory powers, to lobby and
advocate for the implementation of youth development programme by government
departments,
* The adoption of the National Youth Development Policy Framework. The Policy
identifies five areas of strategic intervention for sustainable youth
development. These are: social well-being, youth economic participation and
empowerment, education and training, justice and safety,
* The setting up of the Umsobomvu Youth Fund.

While the government has put all these systems and structures in place, many
challenges do, however, remain. Among these is the fact that youth constitute
the majority of the poor and unemployed:

* 70% of the unemployed in SA are youths below the age of 35,
* youth unemployment is highest in the 25-29 age bracket

There are also challenges that relate to the programmatic and organisational
issues of the youth commission that still need to address. Among these are:

* The broad and relevant mandate of the National Youth Commission,
* Specific mandate of Umsobomvu Youth Fund on promotion of youth economic
participation,
* Perceived duplication in the work of the National Youth Commission and
Umsobomvu Youth Fund,
* Youth need a “one-stop-shop” on youth development,

Government decided to support the process of the review of youth development
institutions in South Africa.

The Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa aims to half
unemployment and accelerate economic growth. The youth and women should be the
major beneficiaries of this as the sectors that are highly affected by
unemployment. As part of the ASGI-SA the Government will be spending R370
billion on infrastructure development, youth must position itself correctly in
order to benefit from this.

We must think about how youth businesses should benefit, how much of this
amount should go towards youth enterprises, and implement strategies that will
meet these objectives.

This poses a challenge to us to ensure that we fast-track the development of
youth skills both in general areas and in specific priority skills that are
required by the economy, for an example in project management and artisan
skills.

We must also pay a special attention to unemployed graduates and ensure that
we place them in jobs through the Umsobomvu Youth Fund (UYF) and Standard Bank
databases.

We must also ensure that we link up the new youth professionals with the
Retired Skills programme that is spearheaded by the DBSA, which has already
started at municipal level.

Matriculants should also be assisted by way of re-opening of trade schools
and by developing their entrepreneurial skills.

We need to ensure that the youth are participating in numbers in Business
Outsourcing Process (BOPs), information and communication technology (ICT) and
tourism sectors. There are real opportunities for the youth in the development
of township tourism as tour guides, language interpreters, participating in the
development of souvenir businesses and ensuring the safety of tourists who come
to our townships.

Our Second Economy initiatives like the Expanded Public Works Programme
should be geared towards dealing with youth unemployment and skills
development. There should be training of youth around areas of early childhood
development and home-based care-givers for people who are sick and old.

As a way of resolving some of these challenges, Government has agreed that
as part of a “build-up to 30th anniversary to June 16” the country will convene
a Youth Development Convention to undertake the task of reviewing these
institutions as part of the broader policy review process.

Integration of Youth Development

Government has also resolved that youth development must be an integrated
process. The approach is that the following steps should be taken to ensure
that this objective is realised:

* Government clusters will need to incorporate youth development as part of
the Programme of Action,
* Positioning of youth development in government departments must be
streamlined, for instance Youth Directorates will have to be situated in the
offices of the Directors-General,
* Incorporation of youth development into the business plans of government
departments,
* Localisation of youth development by incorporating it into the Integrated
Development Plans,
* Roll-out of the National Youth Service programme is under way,
* Youth have a role in the social transformation of our country, fighting
poverty and contributing to the creation of work,
* Government departments should integrate youth service into their existing
programmes,
* Youth service should be localised by integrating it into Integrated
Development Plans and Local Economic Developments,
* Education Department should incorporate youth service into the
curriculum,
* The need to learn from our fellow brothers and sisters on the African
Continent (countries such as Nigeria have implemented successful models on
youth service)

The youth have been critical of the role the private sector has been playing
in youth development. Considering the resources amassed by the private sector,
very little is being done that responds to the youth development objectives as
articulated in the National Youth Development Policy Framework.

The “one company one learner” of the National Youth Commission should be
accelerated to allow more youth to receive experiential training and ultimately
to get absorbed into the world of work.

Izimbizo should serve as one of the primary vehicles to popularise youth
development work, multi-purpose community centres (MPCCs) should serve as
information hubs for youth development,

Need to develop relevant strategies to communicate our youth development
work to rural youth, young women, young African males, and young people with
disabilities.

I wish you well as you deliberate around the challenges that face the youth.
I hope that this consultative process will find responses to these challenges
confronting our youth, not forgetting the role of the New Partnership for
Africa's Development (NEPAD) Youth Desk that you will need to collaborate with,
because South Africa cannot afford to deal only with only its issues without
addressing issues of development within the continent as a whole.

Thank you.

Issued by: The Presidency
17 January 2006