Chair, youth in South Africa are young women and young men between the ages of 14 and 35 - most of them going through dramatic changes in their life circumstances and facing challenges and threats that are unique to them.
Forty-two percent of the population of this country are under 35 and prioritised attention has been focused on youth development through policies, institutions and endless programmes, yet the challenges and needs of young people seem to increase. Even where policy is good, we lack a capacity to implement it.
Young people are telling me that, after 20 years of democracy in South Africa, enhancing youth development means very little to them - especially to those who are not in major cities.
The biggest challenge, they say, is the lack of opportunity for employment. We are all painfully aware that statistics reveal very high unemployment amongst all demographic groups in South Africa, including the youth. Young people are saying that the biggest obstacle is that government is not doing enough to invest in skills development at the secondary education level. Our country needs, they say - and a very passionate a young man told me this - artisans, plumbers and electricians. As a developing country we need engineers too. Clearly we have not done enough to convince and fund young people to get the education and skills they need to qualify as artisans and engineers, amongst other things. Greater investment is needed if the youth are to get the chance they deserve to escape and avoid the poverty trap.
The Sectors Education and Training Authorities, Setas, created some years ago to address issues of skills development, have not had the impact envisioned or required. To add insult to injury, Setas continue to underspend their budgets.
Now, sadly and very importantly, the agency established by the Presidency to deal with youth issues is perceived by young people to have done very little. The National Youth Development Agency, NYDA, needs a serious revamp to include young people from all walks of life and different political parties if it is to become a credible body. The NYDA does not have a good story to tell, and there are good stories to tell. The lack of accountability has been one of the main problems. Government agencies must serve all citizens in the country, not just a select few.
ACDP Youth continue to call for greater emphasis on multiparty participation as they are convinced that this will bring greater accountability and more ideas to the agency with the prospect of more being achieved.
It is critically important that people in positions impacting on youth development have the required expertise and knowledge of youth development. A lack of capacity to link youth with skills and finance, even where youth desks exist, seems to be a factor contributing to the lack of success.
At a municipal level, youth officers operate with substantial but inadequate annual budgets that are very quickly exhausted by youth summits or conferences and transport to Youth Day celebration venues, as, increasingly, youth development is being regarded as an event rather than a process. The bottom line is that democracy and youth programmes are costly and there is no way around it. Thank you. [Time expired.]