The World Youth Skills Day was marked on July 15. This provided a moment to reflect on efforts being spearheaded nationally and globally in engaging youths towards sustainable development through the provision of skills.
Without inclusivity, development cannot be sustainable. Yet inclusivity cannot be achieved without carrying everyone along, including the youth. Young people have the potential to turn things around by bringing in the energy, enthusiasm and innovation needed to spur economic development.
This is especially important for our country which is among those with the highest percentage of young people (aged 15-24) at 20.3 per cent. Unemployment has disproportionality affected them, at times due to inadequate skills needed by the labour market or due to the long periods it takes them to transition from school to work.
Consequently, many youths still struggle in their endeavour to meaningfully participate in the development of our nation. The United Nations estimates that the youth are thrice as likely as older people to stay out of employment and when they finally get employed, they face a number of labour inequalities that include low-quality jobs.
Possession of requisite skills enables the young people to enter decent jobs while access to funds allows them the opportunity to showcase their creativity and business acumen when they start and run enterprises which create employment. This is the time to capitalise on the youth and place them at the centre of development initiatives.
And there is no better way to go about it than to empower them with the much-needed skills then linking them to opportunities for self-reliance.
