- Vice Chancellor and Principal of the University of South Africa, Prof Manda Makhanya
- Deputy Minister in The Presidency for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, Mr Buti Manamela
- Acting Director-General for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, Mr Tshediso Matona
- Chief Executive of the National Youth Development Agency, Mr Khathu Ramukumba
- Members of the media,
- Ladies and gentlemen
It gives us great pleasure as the Government of the Republic of South Africa to participate in the hosting of the second Commonwealth Conference on Youth Work. This very important international conference under the auspices of the Commonwealth will be held at the University of South Africa, Muckleneuk campus in Pretoria, from 8-10 March 2016. This follows the Inaugural Commonwealth Conference on Youth Work that was hosted here in South Africa in March 2013.
We are proud as the South African Government to participate in hosting this second instalment of the Commonwealth Conference on Youth Work to further consolidate the preliminary work in this regard flowing from the Inaugural Conference. As resolved in the last Commonwealth Conference on Youth Work, the hosting will from henceforth rotate amongst all other member States after this forthcoming Conference in March 2016.
The theme for this year’s conference will be, “Engaging Young People in Nation Building – the Youth Workers’ Role”. The sub-themes in the conference will be on Youth Work and Professional Recognition; Education and Training of Youth Workers; Concepts and Practice of Youth Work; Creating Collective Strength through Association for Youth Work Professionals; Certification and Licensing of Youth Workers.
In both South Africa and the African continent as a whole, the youth constitutes the majority of the people. This poses serious challenges with respect to youth development in areas such as skills, entrepreneurship and employment. Thus the Commonwealth Conference focused on youth work provides opportunity to confront these and many other challenges facing the youth of our country, the African continent and the entire world, particularly the participating countries that are members of the Commonwealth. Without doubt, youth development must be central to our respective countries’ national development agendas for the mere fact that they constitute by far the majority of our people, particularly in the African continent. This Commonwealth Conference on Youth Work comes at the appropriate time in the South African context, following the adoption of the National Youth Policy 2020, which amongst others speak on the role that youth work must do to help unlock the potentials of our youth.
As we know, each and every country develops and adopts a national development trajectory in order to meet respective national development priorities. Likewise as South Africa we have developed and embraced the National Development Plan, Vision 2030. The National Development Plan, was a culmination of the participation of our people drawn from various social orientation in business, the academia, media and so on. It is for this reason that the NDP is a people’s development programme, and not just by government or for government. Integral to this vision is the comprehensive development of our youth, amongst others through the professionalisation of the public sector.
In its Strategic Plan 2013-2017, the Commonwealth Secretariat, states, “… the Secretariat will support members to continue promoting the professionalisation of youth work. This will be pursued through setting competency standards for youth development work; exploration and facilitation of courses in youth development work; advocacy and support for the recognition of youth work as a profession; and the establishment of national and Pan-Commonwealth youth worker associations.” The Commonwealth Heads of Governments Meeting also took a decision that member states should facilitate and support professionalisation of Youth Work. The hosting of this upcoming Conference on Youth Work follows our Cabinet decision to endorse the request to host this very important gathering of the youth workers of the world.
The conference participants will be drawn from the 53 Commonwealth member governments. They will include young people from all our communities, but also youth workers, ministries responsible for youth affairs, academics, researchers, students from Higher Education and Training (HET) institutions, as well as Further Education and Training (FET) institutions, officials from international youth development agencies, national youth councils, and non-government organisations. This conference is expected to bring together an estimated number of three hundred (300) participants.
Indeed, we are listening to the voices of our young people and those youth workers working alongside them. They told us that they don’t want hand-outs, they want a hand up. With the second Commonwealth Conference on Youth Work coming up, it is another key milestone and opportunity for all of us to raise our hands, to join our hands in order for young people to again be the key driver for nation building.
On behalf of the President of our Republic, His Excellency JG Zuma, as well as the government and people of South Africa; We take this opportunity to welcoming all the delegates as they make their way to this important Commonwealth Conference on Youth Work from the length and breadth of our country and equally importantly from all over the world!
I thank you!!
