Building an entrepreneurial nation YouStart way

After more than two years of rage, the full impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is now coming to the fore.

Beyond taking lives, the pandemic has saddled governments across the world with major economic challenges and dislocated many economic systems and structures.

Ghana, being a developing country, is doubly impacted. One of the areas that it wreaked severe havoc on is employment.

With an obvious youth bulge of our population, the government is stretched to provide education through facilities and resources for its youth.

Employment

Recent photographs shared on social media showed the snaking queues of those who had applied for employment in the security services.

There were testimonials as well of people who had actually spent the night at the recruitment venues.

The Minister of Finance, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, said estimates showed that youth unemployment was at 12.6 per cent, while 50 per cent of the youth were underemployed.

“Around 100,000 students graduate from accredited tertiary institutions annually, with more than 50 per cent of them enrolled in courses with limited or no job growth potential,” the minister said when he presented the 2022 budget last November.

Agyenkwa Budget

The 2022 annual budget, on the theme: “Sustaining an entrepreneurial nation through fiscal consolidation and job creation,” has outlined a number of initiatives to address the youth-centred challenges that continue to affect the nation.

A key indicator of economic development of any nation is growth in business and entrepreneurship. This explains why the cardinal point of the budget was entrepreneurship.

As the minister of finance has said, the 2022 budget is meant to ignite and unleash the innovative and entrepreneurial spirit of the young Ghanaian. One of the policies to achieve this is the YouStart initiative.

Under the policy, the government has set aside about GH¢10 billion for training and capacity building for the youth for the next three years, starting from 2022 as part of measures to create jobs.

The initiative is part of the COVID-19 Alleviation and Revitalisation of Enterprises Support (Ghana CARES) programme that was developed out of extensive talks with stakeholders, including youth.

It is a carefully designed vehicle to support young entrepreneurs to gain access to capital, training, technical skills and mentoring to enable them to launch on and operate their own businesses.

It is estimated that the YouStart initiative will create one million jobs using a seed capital of GH¢1 billion.

Indeed, it represents the country’s most credible attempt to marking a conscious departure from always developing job-seeking youth to those who will own businesses and create jobs.

As part of the package, beneficiaries will be equipped with training to equip them with skills development, entrepreneurial support and business advisory service provision.

In the long run, this will open up the economy and provide possibilities for young people to be valuable and active citizens of the country by working and paying taxes to assure progress. When the correct frameworks are put in place for youth to explore potential opportunities, the nation can be assured of brighter and more vibrant future economic managers, create wealth and reduce crime.

Prospects

The Youstart initiative needs to transcend the usual politics and be taken seriously by all. It is a singular programme that guarantees prospects for the future of the youth.

It is worth noting that wealth is not created just by huge corporations such as Apple and Dangote Cement. Small businesses also pay tax and, thus, create wealth.

The time is now for us to support the government to execute the YouStart programme to help address our bulgy unemployment situation.

The writer is with the Public Affairs Department of the Ministry of Finance.

E-mail: eansah@mofep.gov.gh