A one-day national validation exercise (country action plan) on multi-country support to promote employment opportunities for youth in Agri-business in Africa (OYA) has been held at the conference room of the National Youth Authority on Tuesday, 23rd November, 2021.
Delivering the keynote address, Chief Executive Officer of the Authority, Mr. Pius Enam Hadzide said with a 12.6% youth employment rate confronting the country, coupled with about 50% of employed youth considered as underemployed, it is apparent that unemployment presents a significant barrier to our continuous enjoyment of peace and security.
He said agri-business therefore presents the most appropriate avenue with enormous opportunities for employment creation.
He commended the FAO and UNIDO for initiating the project particularly as it seeks to compliment government’s efforts at modernizing and expanding the agriculture sector.
He tasked participants to come up with a framework that would not only compliment government’s initiatives such as the IDIF, PFFJs, etc. but will also address the factors that dissuade young people from venturing into agriculture and adopting it as a valid commercial venture.
Mr. Benjamin Adjei, a representative from FAO, for his part expressed appreciation to Mr. Hadzide and the entire team at NYA and said the exercise was in response to the National Youth Policy which incidentally is championed by the NYA.
He said for young people to take charge of the economy, there must be a multifaceted, deliberate response to address the unemployment canker.
Citing the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS), Mr. Adjei said 300,000 jobs ought to be created annually to cater for the unemployment situation and agri-business was the surest way to address that.
He commended government for the numerous youth focused interventions such as NABCO, NEIP, etc. and said there was still a need for deliberate actions to provide game changing solutions to make agriculture attractive to the youth.
He said the time had come for stakeholders to move away from talk to action, to sustainability and ultimately to the attainment of the global development goals of 2030.
Participants were drawn from agriculture focused agencies nationwide.
