The Sunday Independent

Tackling youth unemployment crisis requires collaboration

ON WEDNESDAY, June 16, the country will mark 45 years since June 16, 1976. We do so again, like last year, amid a pandemic, and now as a third wave of Covid-19 looms over the country.

The damage done by Covid-19 to the economy cannot be understated. The Quarterly Labour Force Survey, Quarter 1 of 2021, reveals that a million fewer people are employed compared to this time last year, highlighting the sheer scale of the economic crisis.

Yet, as South Africa and the world face their greatest crises in recent memory, there are reasons to be hopeful. The SA Revenue Service has reported collecting more taxes than anticipated for the past two quarters, indicating that the economic recovery may be occurring faster than expected.

Salary levels for many employees are returning to pre-pandemic levels. And the vaccine roll-out, although slow to start, is under way, providing hope of ending the pandemic by the end of the year.

We know and have debated the youth unemployment crisis South Africa faces and which has been worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic. The political will of the sixth administration in terms of policy development is not lacking.

The presidential youth employment intervention, announced in the State of the Nation Address 2020, was an expression of government’s willingness from a resource, financing, co-ordination and implementation perspective, to address the persistent levels of youth unemployment. It also expressed the cross-collaboration with the private sector and civil society actors, to ensure that there was an all-of-society approach to combating the massive challenge.

Translating political will into meaningful implementation does, however, require more sustained effort if we are to shift the needle. National plans, although well intentioned, can sometimes be difficult to implement at ground level.

The Harambee Breaking Barriers Report for 2021 provides some direction on how sector-level plans can help to translate national plans into more tangible results.

Often at an individual level companies compete for scarce capital and labour. Often the interests of these companies are not aligned as they compete for the same market or resources.

If we are to meaningfully and inclusively grow the South African economy, we must look beyond individual companies and understand the value that can be generated through shared growth. Sector-level co-ordination brings together industry market players and turns them into engines of growth attracting investment and increasing the skills pool.

An example is in the Global Business Services sector, where increased sector-level plans between the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition and industry co-ordinating bodies have doubled jobs in the past five years.

The sectoral approach assisted during the lockdown, where co-ordination between the government and business ensured the services were classified as essential and saved many jobs. The sector remains on course to create 500 000 new jobs by 2030.

At a sectoral level, there is also a case to be made that successes in one sector can be replicated in others. For example, the agriculture sector continues to grow year-on-year.

This is also evidenced at the National Youth Development Agency, where applications by young people for agriculture initiatives have doubled over the past five years.

The Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development has provided 75 000 subsistence farmers (60% young farmers) with voucher support as part of the economic recovery and reconstruction plan.

The verification of the agriculture programmes was executed by 2 000 agriculture graduates (all youth) and, for the first time in South Africa, there is a geo-spatial database of subsistence farmers. This is an example of work that brings together technology, skills and funding in a harnessed and youth-centred approach – not at conceptual level, but at scale.

There are clear scalable templates of how we, as a country, can execute on political will and national plans to implement clear deliverables to build a more inclusive economy.

Covid-19 with all its pain has perhaps opened a small window of opportunity to differentially implement and shake off failures of the past. We dare not waste it.

OPINION

en-za

2021-06-13T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-06-13T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://thesundayindependent.pressreader.com/article/282016150271882

African News Agency