Integrate youth employment modules into national youth authority
Young people are the most valuable assets of every country and therefore their role in all spheres of development is inevitable. The youth of Ghana constitute a bulk of the country’s population so it is necessary they are groomed properly to take up challenges and contribute meaningfully to the development aspirations of Ghana.
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It is against this background that the former duty bearers of this country deemed it necessary to establish the National Youth Authority (NYA), formerly National Youth Council (NYC). The authority was established to serve as the umbrella institution of the state responsible for youth development as a result of the promulgation of (NRCD) 241 of 1974.
Failure of NYA
It is my view and that of others that the National Youth Authority has failed the teeming youth of this country.
Among those who hold this view are former National Coordinator of the Authority, Dr Sekou Nkrumah, and Ezekiel Chibeze, Chairman of the Coalition of Youth Development Organisations in Ghana (COYDOG). Dr Sekou Nkrumah was quoted by a section of the media recently as saying that the NYA was a useless entity and the current Coordinator of the Authority, Mr Ras Mubarak, must tell the government to scrap it .
In a rejoinder published on several websites to Dr Sekou Nkrumah’s assertion, Chibeze, who is a popular youth activist in the country, was quoted as saying that Sekou was on point.
He also argued that any institution which failed to perform its mandate could be classified as such. Now what is the core mandate of the authority and on what basis are we all seeing it as a failure?
At a stakeholders’ forum in Takoradi in July, 2012, the Director of Programmes of the NYA, Mr Stephen Mensah-Etsibah, said ''the vision of the authority is to become a unique public sector youth development service organisation, responsive to the empowerment needs of the Ghanaian youth and ensuring their access to national development investment opportunities.
We exist to provide the relevant and conducive environment that defines and supports the implementation of effective frontline youth empowerment practices, focusing on young people's participation in socio-economic and political development while facilitating private and third sector provider investments in youth empowerment.”
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Can we all then agree with Dr Sekou and Chibeze that the National Youth Authority failed us?
However I wouldn’t want to attribute the failure of the authority entirely to its leadership.
Any blame?
Who is to be blamed then?
It is an open secret that past and present governments have not given the authority the needed resources and support to carry out its mandate. This is evidenced in budget allocation and its visibility in all districts. How much will it cost us to open operational offices in all districts in Ghana?
I am aware that the authority doesn’t exist in most districts. As a matter of fact, some people don’t even know what the authority is all about. If our politicians claim that they are passionate about youth development but can’t allocate a small space for us in the districts, then they are taking us for granted. Interestingly, programmes which are supposed to be directly handed over to the authority are being operated separately from different offices.
Have we ever asked ourselves why we have separate institutions that claim to be creating jobs for the youth and yet we don’t see an end to joblessness in Ghana?
Are we really serious about the youth business in Ghana? I don’t think so.
Suggestions/ Recommendations
The government must push all the piece-meal strategies of creating employment in the country into the running of the Authority. This is because these programmes receive a lot of funding from central government than the authority.
The Youth Leadership training institutes in the 10 regions of the country should be well equipped since they have the capacity of training employable youths. The NYA has 11 youth leadership and skills development institutions across the country, so why do we create an ICT and other equally important youth employment modules and still advertise for other organisations to come for the contract? If we really want the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneur Development Agency (GYEEDA), Local Enterprises and Skills Development Programme( LESDEP), Youth Enterprises and Skills Development Programme (YESDEP) and Graduate Business Support Scheme (GEBSS), among others, to work again then we must hand them over to the National Youth Authority and stop the duplication.
We should give opportunities to the leadership institutions to equip them. As a camper at the Asankare Youth Leadership and Training Institute in August 2011, I was surprised to see the marvelous work the students in the school were doing. My two-week stay in Asankare taught me a lot. The students actually put up most of the structures in their school with assistance from the teachers of the school. Why don’t we support the students to assist the government to put up the 200 community schools?
Finally, the GH¢10 million youth entrepreneurship fund recently set up by the President to promote entrepreneurship should also be managed by the authority. It is only through this means that the NYA can become functional and active as we all want.
The writer is the Executive Director of Youth Alliance for Development (YAD), a youth focused NGO with its head office in Obuasi.
Writer’s email : tantirobert@yahoo.co.uk