Statement at media briefing by the National Youth Development Agency following its successful international trips and update on the activities of the agency board by board Chairperson Mr Sifiso Mtsweni

The National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) has invited members of the media to this press briefing so as to, as we had said we will do, keep the media and young people of South Africa abreast on the developments within the Agency and as a means to update young people of the country on the progress we are making in realizing our strategic objectives that we had set ourselves as a new board, which are:

1. Take the NYDA back to the young people by ensuring that the agency’s style of engagement is more open and transparent.

2. To see more branches established across the country.

3. To rebrand the Agency to reflect the character of the youth of today.

4. Improve on our communications strategy to make sure it speaks the language of the youth and resonates with them.

5. Regular meeting with all youth formations

6. Speed up the process of amending the NYDA Act from Section 75 to Section 76, so that we will be able to establish of Provincial Boards of the NYDA.

7. As part of our mission to mainstream youth development in all sectors of society, to convene all Youth Directorates and Youth Units in provincial and local governments so that we align youth development programmes into one. This will assist the NYDA in playing the coordination role.

8. Lobby government and private sector to deal with the issue of 30% youth set-asides.

9. Challenge government and private sector to ensure that at least 40% of the workforce must be youth graduates.

10. Lobby for the increase of the NYDA Budget

11. To support youth enterprises further, we said we will establish;

Youth Fund:

For this fund, we are looking at engaging government and private sector to pledge funds and make investment into the fund. This funds will be used to fund youth owned enterprises that need funding to grow that falls outside of the NYDA Grant Fund R100 000 threshold.

Skills Fund:

We will engage the SETA’s and Department of Labour to set a fund that will deal with the skilling and training of artisans.

The above, as well as our unwavering commitment to maintain our clean financial record including adherence to proper governance systems has been what defines our role as this new Board. We derive our mandate from two set of legislations (namely the NYDA Act and the National Youth Policy 2020), which are anchored through the National Development Plan 2030, which says the following about the state of the youth:

Having a relatively young population can be advantageous, provided the majority of working-age individuals are gainfully employed. The challenge is to convert this into a demographic dividend. This will only be possible if the number of working-age individuals can be employed in productive activities (2012: 98). Yet social norms continue to sideline young South Africans, treating political and economic participation as the prerogative of older people, which is why there is a continued need for policies and implementation.

The National Development Plan 2030 also sets targets to intervene in the number of youth that are not in employment, education, training (NEET) by setting targets for increases in enrolments in Further Education and Training (FET), Higher Education Institutions and provide second chance opportunities to young people to complete Grade 12.

The NYDA plays a lead role in ensuring that all major stakeholder’s, i.e. government, private sector and civil society, prioritise youth development and contribute towards identifying and implementing lasting solutions which address youth development challenges. Under the Poverty indicator produced by Stats SA Rates of unemployment, limited educational opportunities and rapid socio-cultural transformations characterised by weakening social controls and breakdown of traditional norms.

These challenges have implications for the health and wellbeing of the youth and for the contributions of youthful populations to the economies of African nations.

The Agency realised the importance of a streamlined, relevant and responsive youth development strategy that associates directly with broader South African development objectives as encapsulated in the NDP 2030 and other developmental frameworks/policies and the importance of harnessing such a strategic association of South Africa is to move forward.

The NYDA continues with its business of implementing youth development programmes directly. The focus of the Agency’s business will still be informed by the following two of the five imperatives of youth development as contained in the National Youth Policy 2015- 2020 which are:

Economic participation: is an essential national process, which engages citizens to contribute productively in an effort to eradicate poverty. This process is therefore equally important in the holistic development of the youth. The challenge is to enable the youth to contribute as productive citizens by shaping their talents and creative energies, equipping them with appropriate skills, and removing the barriers that may constrain their participation in the labour market.

Education and Skills and Education: remains key to unlocking the future of South Africa’s youth. Although there is documented evidence of improved educational attainment, there are still challenges that need to be addressed to rectify the imbalances in the education system.

NYDA products and services are designed in such a way that they offer an integrated approach to the multi-faceted problem of youth unemployment and broadly, youth development. The NYDA’s success greatly rests on its ability to scale up its integrated product offerings.

Given the broad policy framework and strategic focus identified by the Board, we have been hard at work ensuring that we move the agency forward.

Happy Birthday Nelson Mandela

The NYDA has joined millions and millions of people across the globe in wishing our International Icon, Isithwalandwe/Seaparankwe President Nelson Mandela, who would have turned 99 years of Age yesterday on the 18th of July 2017.

In November 2009, the UN General Assembly declared 18 July “Nelson Mandela International Day” in recognition of the former South African President’s contribution to the culture of peace and freedom.

General Assembly resolution A/RES/64/13 recognizes Nelson Mandela’s values and his dedication to the service of humanity, in the fields of conflict resolution, race relations, the promotion and protection of human rights, reconciliation, gender equality and the rights of children and other vulnerable groups, as well as the fight against poverty and the promotion of social justice. It acknowledges his contribution to the struggle for democracy internationally and the promotion of a culture of peace throughout the world.

To us, Nelson Mandela was a youth activist who was instrumental in the formation of the Congress Youth League that radicalized the struggle for freedom and democracy. He is a symbol of selflessness, humility and resistance to everything unjust. We continue to be inspired by his life and we have spent our 67 minutes in Ekurhuleni alongside the Mayor Cllr Masina handing over houses, blankets and necessities to the needy. We continue to call on the youth of South Africa to emulate the life of Nelson Mandela in their everyday deeds and at the Centre of our approach should be the spirit of volunteerism as espoused by our National Youth Service program which derives its existence from Mandela who was the Chief Volunteer of the Defiance campaign against apartheid.

Youth Month Activities

The NYDA held successful youth month activities in June 2017 under the theme The Year of OR Tambo, advancing youth economic emancipation the theme was aimed at celebrating the centenary year of Oliver Tambo and our resolve that the second phase of the revolution remains that of economic freedom for the youth of this country.

At the Centre of our programs, we placed youth economic participation through advocacy and strong lobbying for:

40% Youth employment in all public and private sector employment. We have called for an introduction of legislation to impose a quota for youth employment in this country. We have raised this matter with the President and the Presidential Youth Working Group, we have taken this fight to the Policy Conference of the ruling party. We are happy that society, especially the youth have seized this debate and it is one we are going to win. We are deeply touched that structures of the ruling party in the policy conference have agreed to take this discussion further and resolve on it in its December conference so that it becomes Government Policy.

We have called for the scrapping of Experience as an entrance requirement for youth employment, the ruling party’s policy conference has agreed with us on this one and we look forward to lobbying the private sector to also embrace this. The situation of unemployed graduates is now out of control and we think the time has come for a radical approach to deal with this matter.

We have actively called for 30% youth set-asides in all Government procurement. We are encouraged that this is finding expression, we applaud the KZN Provincial Government in particular for implementing this resolution, we have noted other provinces as well who have shown keen interest in implementing this. Our argument remains that Government has a budget of over R1 Trillion and R500 Billion of this money goes for procurement. Policies such as PPPFA makes it impossible for youth owned business to access Government procurement services that places much adherence on price as opposed to setting aside a budget for youth owned businesses to compete amongst each other. This is a fight we will take on till its logical conclusion.

We support free education for the poor up until undergraduate level, we call for the release of the commission report on fees.

On education, we have also called for the inclusion of Learner’s Licenses as part of the curriculum and that when a learner finishes matric, that learner must have a Learner’s license, this should be expanded to tertiary education where if a student graduates, such a student must graduate with a Driver’s license.

Through our National Youth Service Program, we are calling on the youth of this country to engender a spirit of patriotism and selflessness through volunteerism. We hosted an international delegation of the Flemish Government of Belgium to try learn and adopt their style of a Youth Service that will ultimately make us reach this goal.

We have engaged with various youth formations to ensure that we speed up the process of amending the NYDA Act from a section 75 to a section 76 in order to allow for the establishment of Provincial chapters for the agency. This work is being expedited and should be before Parliament before the end of this year.

We are also finalizing the draft Integrated Youth Development Strategy. We have committed ourselves that the first draft will be released by end of August so as to ensure that by the end of this year, our country has an Integrated youth development strategy.

We have developed a framework for the establishment of the Youth and Entrepreneurship and skills funds which will be launched by the CEO pending the Board approval.

We have called and we continue to call for the increase in the budget of the NYDA. The current budget allocated to the agency is not sufficient to meet all our goals, especially goals we set ourselves in ensuring that the agency reaches young people in rural areas and townships

We have started our process of increasing NYDA offices, to date we have launched offices in Delmas Mpumalanga, Richards Bay Empangeni and are finalizing an office in Mbhashe Municipality in the Eastern Cape. We have also committed to opening new offices in Ekurhuleni, Newcastle, OR Tambo District, Western Cape and Limpopo. Our goal as the Board is to open offices in all 54 Districts of our country as our end goal and we will hard to achieve this.

We have resolved to engage with the youth in the Arts and Culture as well as Sports and Recreation space in order to also ascertain and address their challenges that they face. The first of those meetings will take place a few days from now.

We have also travelled to ALL provinces to meet with young people to engage them on our program and also get their feedback on what they believe should be the program of the NYDA, accessibility remains one of the most key issues that are raised.

On International Travels

In realizing the above goals and in our continued international work, we have visited various countries to lobby for the positions of the agency as a means to secure additional funding for the agency. We have met the EU delegation to engage on possible funding in areas of skills development, health and sports. We are in the final stages of reaching an agreement in that regard.

The office of the Deputy Chairperson is heading our affiliations to bodies such as the Pan African Youth Union, the Pan African Parliament and the World Federation of Democratic Youth. Various meetings have taken place in this regard, this year the WFDY will host its congress in Russia, South Africa will be sending a delegation and is part of the International Organizing Committee and the Deputy Chairperson heads the National Organizing Committee. As an agency we have resolved that whilst we will be sending a delegation of young people drawn from different youth formations, NGO’s and the NYDA to the conference, we have resolved to engage Government to assist with the funding as our current budget would not allow such to take place.

We have also received various invites by Ministers to accompany them on official Government duty, this is standard practice but we have made it clear that our participation in such trips must have value for the youth of South Africa. The Chairperson and CEO recently visited Chicago in the US as part of the standing invitation we received from the Rainbow PUSH Coalition which held its Annual Conference this past week. The NYDA accompanied the Ministers of Tourism and Communications to the conference which was this year focusing on Global Education Fund. Education remains a key component of what we do and for us this was an opportunity to engage with our stakeholders in the US to find sustainable ways for dealing with the funding constraints on education. The NYDA even before this new board has been an active participant in the Rainbow PUSH Coalition conventions and this year we are happy that our participation in the conference has led to a groundbreaking agreement reached with the Global African Chamber of Commerce based in Chicago which entails the following areas of corporation between the National Youth Development Agency of South Africa and the Africa Global Chamber of Commerce

Key areas of focus for the 2017/2017 year

Mentorship

It is agreed that Africa Global Chamber of Commerce will recruit mentors from their professional and business network who will provide business mentorship to young entrepreneurs from South Africa, whereas, the National Youth Development Agency will identify young entrepreneurs from South Africa to be assisted in starting and or growing their business through the said mentorship support. We have identified 50 young entrepreneurs from our country as a start

Financial support to young entrepreneurs

It is agreed that, the National Youth Development Agency will identify young entrepreneurs from South Africa who requires funding to start/grow their businesses with financial requirements of a minimum, up to and over U$2 million and the Africa Global Chamber of Commerce will identify investors from their investors network and present the funding business case for these young South African entrepreneurs for funding. This funding will assist young people who require funding for projects over our threshold of R100 000.

YALI Entrepreneurship conference

The Africa Global Chamber of Commerce will organize and host a YALI entrepreneurship conference in Chicago in June 2018 which will focus on the empowerment of young African entrepreneurs by creating a platform for engagements with experts in business, we launched NYDA Ambassadors program in South Africa where we identified 15 of our most success stories and beneficiaries. These beneficiaries will be attending the YALI Entrepreneurship conference which will be in June next year. This will open up international markets for the youth of this country as well as open space for networks beyond the shores of our country.

Conclusion

The above is our briefing to the media and the youth of South Africa. We wish to assure all and sundry that as we had proclaim in our first Board meeting that this will be an A�ctivist Board that we are hard at work serving the youth of this country. Everything we do and shall do will be in the best interest of the youth of South Africa, we shall within the available resources and space, meet the goals set for ourselves and at the end of our term, the NYDA will be an agency accessible to the youth of this country in all corners and will champion their interests.

Source: Government of South Africa