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Chairperson
Leaders and representatives from the Private Sector and Other Institutions
All Participants
Friends and Comrades

It is indeed an honour and privilege to be here at this Youth Economic Summit. Young people occupy a special and important place in the future development of any country.

With youth accounting for a significant percentage of our province's population it is imperative that we set in place processes that will address the imbalances of the past, that overcomes the harsh realities of the present and that develops youth as a strong foundation for the transformation and change for tomorrow.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we would like to see the full participation of our youth in the new South Africa that we are building, for their economic advancement and development. Young people must be empowered to make meaningful contribution in the development of our country.

The apartheid-based inequalities have resulted into a lack of access to education, training, jobs and shortages of skilled personnel among our young people. For too long have they been sidelined and prevented through discriminatory laws from participating in the main stream of our economy to realise their full potential and talents.

It is for this reason that this Youth Economic Summit is an exciting challenge that provides us with a unique opportunity to develop appropriate strategies that will help address the high unemployment rate among the youth and can at the same time serve as vehicle to address the high-level human resource needs of the province and the country as a whole.

Your deliberations and discussions should be centred around stimulating and developing creative ideas for the unemployed & students who intend to make critical decision of joining the business sector.

We call on the private sector, NGOs and community organisations to join hands and forge strong partnership with government to address issues of unemployment, job creation and economic growth because government on its own cannot do alone.

The private sector must begin to invest in our young people because by so doing they will be investing in the future of this country. We further challenge business to make a meaningful contribution to employment by making tangible commitments.

We also urge financial institutions to work with and amongst various sectors of the youth, so that, together with them, we develop a sustainable response to the challenge of getting young people working in our country.

Local economic development must be strengthened to increase black economic participation. It is in this context that we need to strengthen and promote a solid partnership between emerging and establish business.

We also need to restore confidence in the local economic future of our province and indeed that of the country as a whole. This will lay a solid foundation to assert the youth in the mainstream spheres of economic affairs.

Our country is facing a number of challenges that our young people need to assist in finding solutions to.

Our government has identified the key areas of youth concern like lack of education, poor training and lack of skills, the high unemployment rate, HIV/AIDS, crime and gangsterism, which are major issues in the province

Our young people have a duty to assist efforts by government to respond to these challenges.

Our experience shows that youth are very responsive to the national challenges - what they need is proper guidance, training and opportunities to harnessed their energies.

Opportunities for Youth

More effort is needed to provide youth with opportunities for economic empowerment. These opportunities include increased access to tertiary education, technical skills training, mentoring, internships and a greater commitment from business to skills development.

Efforts must be made to provide youth with ample opportunities to develop their skills, capabilities, personality and become good citizens of the country.

In the employment sector, the thrust is on providing opportunities for self-employment, entrepreneurship development and skill training to provide opportunities for poor youth in the rural areas is critical.

To this end, SMMEs are undoubtedly the most viable option for people finding it difficult to gain work in the formal sector. It offers enormous opportunities to emerging entrepreneurs and plays a pivotal role in the development of our country.

Our perspective must also ensure that we form partnership with already existing projects and programmes related to job creation for all the young people.

The needs of rural youth must be tackled through programmes such as youth farms in agriculture. Indeed, these farms are designed to allow youth the opportunity to develop themselves, acquire the necessary skills & interest to farm and provide sustainable employment opportunities for the community.

Programme Director, it is essential to ensure that students make correct career choices to find it easier to get into the job market and that a new generation of long-term unemployed youth is not created. For a well functioning labour market to exist, we need to have a strong skills base and high rates of human resource development, because at present we do not have a labour market that absorbs jobs.

It has been rightly recognised that access to education and training has to be augmented so that youth can develop their competencies.

In an increasingly competitive and ever changing world, we call on young people to participate in the new information and communications technology to significantly boost South Africa's social-economic development and have access to "knowledge" based economy.

Young people must be encouraged to undertake research in science and technology. The performance of some of our young scientists even in the developed nations is a testimony to this fact.

It is clear that though we still face enormous challenges, our province has undoubtedly laid a solid foundation to advance the course of the reconstruction and development of our country in meeting the needs of our society with a special emphasis on the needs of our youth.

Our new democracy will be meaningless if we do not unite in action to fight the social ills such as crime and gangsterism, HIV/AIDS, alcohol and drug abuse and to end the brutal use of force against children and women.

Young people must get involved in creating awareness on health issues, more particularly on drug abuse, HlV/AIDS etc.

To provide access to information on education, employment and other services, dissemination of information is accorded high priority.

Like generations that came before them, what our youth do today will have a direct impact on our future as a nation.

Our youth no longer have to sit back and fold their arms while waiting for government to come up with solutions to these challenges. They have to be active participants in the struggle to deliver a better life.
This is what this youth economic summit must achieve here today.

I am, indeed, hopeful that the deliberations of this Economic Summit will have far reaching effects on the future policies and programmes for the development of youth all over the province.

I thank you

(c) Northern Cape Provincial Government. Page generated at 10:48; Sunday, March 16, 2003