Southern and Eastern African Youth Employment Knowledge Sharing Forum Opened

The Eastern and Southern Africa Youth Employment Knowledge Sharing Forum opened amidst a lot of fun-fare on 19 July 2015 at the Cresta Lodge in Msasa, Harare in Zimbabwe. Over 200 guests from Eastern and Southern Africa (Comoros, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe) attended the opening cocktail with representations from the UN, development partners, ILO tripartite partners, academia, civil society and the media. Among the guests were also youth, who have managed to create productive and decent employment for themselves and others and moved out of poverty.

Making the official opening statement, Mrs Priscah Mupfumira, the Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare reiterated the government’s commitment to generate employment for youth through ZIM-ASSET (Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation) Framework.

The second day of the Forum started off with technical sessions that addressed youth employment policies and strategies. Louise Fox, Professor in Development Studies at University of California, Berkeley shared her vast experiences from Africa providing the status of youth unemployment on the continent. She said that because of the gravity of the unemployment problem and the apparent absence of jobs in the formal economy,

Agriculture and the informal economy will have to continue employing young people. Governments need to own the whole problem of unemployment. They need to build skills to increase productivity, develop agriculture, skills, focus on labour intensive and pay particular attention to young women.

Dr Godfrey Kanyenze giving a keynote address titled Connecting Youth to Opportunities: A call for Evidence-Based Solutions informed the audience that

Unemployment is not a labour market issue, it is a developmental issue.

Father Godfrey Nzamujo, Founder of the Songhai Centre in Benin, animatedly walked the participants through the activities of the Centre. The Songhai Centre is running a highly integrated value chain development initiative, reflecting the symbiotic relationships between waste management, energy, ICTs and biological capital.
The Child Speaker of Parliament of Zimbabwe, Ms Fungai Makuyana, had this to say about unemployment:

Youths are facing a life filled with unfulfilled expectations, shuttered dreams, deprivation due to the employment crisis……..We are sometimes engaged in things that are unethical and against our beliefs because that would be the only way out. Learned, educated youths engage in prostitution. This is immoral and the youths are the actual victims….Besides we are slowly becoming corrupt. So is that what you want for the youths of Zimbabwe? They say we are the future of tomorrow, what future are they talking about, I wonder?

Watch this space for more on the Knowledge Sharing Forum…