YOUTH AND DEVELOPMENT

Sir, With surmounting challenges, the youth are faced with obstacles so profound it would be criminal to ignore them from a developmental perspective.

While gender mainstreaming has become endemic in application to developmental work and programmes, youth issues seem to be an isolated realm whose concerns are confined to specialists in youth-related issues. But this is hardly the direction we need to take. Instead, because of the development challenge that African countries face, the youth are arguably a key and strategic cohort whose inclusion in development is necessary and potentially rewarding. Youth unemployment in the country is over 50 per cent in a society where there is a high misdistribution of income. This suggests that few people have most of the wealth in the kingdom and as a result the have-nots find it difficult to rise up the rung to join the haves.

The challenge assumes colossal proportion for female youths because of the unbalanced gender situation in the kingdom’s formal employment. I highlight the implications of the crisis at hand with regard to the youth and take a rather pessimistic stand on where the current youth may land, assuming leaders continue on the development trajectory that they have adopted. The future looks bleak for most young people from today’s standpoint. While fortune, technology and changes in economic and political outlook may change to the benefit of the youth, I contend that past initiatives and current conditions and policies do not paint a bright picture. At current levels there is a strong likelihood that most of the youth will find themselves in an awkward position in terms of formal employment, social protection, education and provision of social services. Setbacks have occurred primarily because of global phenomena from a growth perspective. But as many social and economic commentators may note, growth alone is not sufficient to ensure that people rise out of poverty.

Instead, deliberate intervention and policy formulation and execution, suffice. The major problem for most young people stems from education and employment. Education is currently provided for all at primary level. However, despite high enrolment rates by African standards, the country faces a challenge downstream. The enrolment rates drop as one considers secondary education and an even sharper decline ensues upon reaching the tertiary level. While the general provision of education services is commendable, the youth are caught in a snare where they have an adequate provision of a ‘bad-tasting’ good. In other words, service provision of education is generally reasonable but of poor quality. The dilemma in providing education of a level and quality which fails to inspire confidence both in customers and consumers is that it prompts them to settle for substitutes where possible.

Global leaders have made efforts at addressing human capital. Building centres for excellence is a start but is not enough. What is required from inception is a national policy on development beyond economic terms. This entails capturing the aspirations of the youth and then providing an enabling environment for the fruition of those aspirations. 

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