Youth in the Northern Region have urged the government to show serious commitment in addressing youth unemployment in the country. The youth said even though there are some interventions, their impact in reducing the employment in Ghana is minimal.
Rising youth unemployment is one of the deepest economic and social problems facing economies all over the world and has taken center stage in international, national and local policy discussions at all levels.
It is therefore against this background that Youth Empowerment for Life and its partners settled on an annual youth forum theme “Rising Youth Unemployment in Ghana, A canker In Our a society: Our Role to Arrest it”.
The YEFL youth forum is an annual forum where the youth are brought together to deliberate on advocacy issues and also send their concerns to duty bearers in the region and the country as a whole.
During the forum, the youth recognize government’s efforts at establishing national vocational training institutes to retrain the youth in skills development, training in oil and gas, youth enterprise program, youth in agriculture and the Savanna Accelerated Development Authority.
However, the youth drawn from 13 districts in the region, at the end of this year’s annual forum, came out with an 8-point communiqué for relevant stakeholders for necessary actions to tackle the youth unemployment situation in Ghana.
The youth want the government, as a point of departure for youth development in the country, to ensure that funds are made available for the smooth and effective implementation of the National Youth Policy implementation plan.
They also impressed upon government to review the stated number of years of experience for job requirements, which they pointed out constantly sidelines fresh brains needed to stimulate rapid economic growth.
They also called for the creation of committees under the National Youth Authority (YEA) Act, to facilitate youth activities at various levels, and that these committees be made transparent and devoid of politics.
In addition, they proposed a review of the current educational curriculum at the various levels of the educational structure to make training relevant for the job market to foster national development.
On the informal sector, the youth recommended reforms with emphasis on apprenticeship. They urged government not to relent in its efforts to create an enabling environment for an entrepreneurial support scheme for the youth.
The youth finally called on government to enforce the retirement’s regulations on age to make way for young people to occupy public offices. Mr Mahama Salifu, the programs manager of YEFL said government must do everyone possible to ensure the unemployment issue is addressed. “The NGOs will do our part and it be holds on government to complement our effort to help the youth especially in the northern sector,” Mr Salifu said.
Some distinguished young people from the region were also awarded with citations for their outstanding performance in their fields of endeavor by YEFL during this year’s Africa youth Day which falls on every November 1. The day was set aside by the African Union for outstanding youth in their fields of work.
