The Sunday News
Michael Mhlanga
Zimbabwe is a youthful country, with approximately 67,7 percent of its 13 million total populations under the age of 35.
Annual population growth rate estimates range from 2,4 to 3 percent, and projections indicate a population of 23 million by 2030 according to the 2014 Human Development Report. Given the confidence loaded in the preface of the National Youth Policy Preface, I hasten to state that perhaps answers in response to what persistently relegates the potentially productive citizens, or lack of them, are lying in the National Youth Policy, only if Government can enhance its usefulness. I decided to use its preface to ignite a debate on identifying the problem affecting the youth, the causal effects and the actors inducing the “Youth problem”.
This article is a reaction to the March 2019 National Youth Indaba, July Youth Commission consultations and the recently mooted and the National Youth Policy review consultations, which I have all written about by the way. I argue that all conventions have limitedly produced any felt outcomes because for a long time young people in this country have been detached from such processes and are rarely conversant with youth-focused documents.
The preface of the National Youth Policy re-launched in 2013 after the discontent of the 2000 version is apt on that the policy was developed as a framework to provide common aspirations and priorities for youth development across Zimbabwe. It categorically opines that through the National Youth Policy; a tangent of section 20 (1) of Zimbabwe’s constitution of 2013, the Government declares the importance of the active involvement of young people in national development, demonstrating the distinctive and complementary roles of all Government Ministries, the Non-Government Sector and Youth Groups in youth development by providing a framework with common goals for development and promoting a spirit of co-operation and co-ordination.
After reading such a comforting preface of a very important document and attempting to answer the millennium question: What exactly is the problem affecting youth in Zimbabwe? I still shudder to think that the answer is somehow absent in spheres of academia, politics and even religion. You would agree with me that should you try to listen to responses to these three, the discord on what exactly is the problem would drain your spirits. Academia alone will never agree, not because academia is designed not to agree, but because in the space we live in, academics have become highly polarised. On the other side, religion would perhaps remind us that youth are suffering because of their “Gommorite” behaviour, let’s not even think of politics, its answers are everyday exhibits, that is why we have to substitute it for a moment in any attempt to undress the past that has lodged us in this morass.
A revision of the National Youth Policy reports that the policy seeks to ensure that all young women and men are given meaningful opportunities to reach their full potential, both as individuals and as active participants in society. Again, a central question, how far are we in responding to that? The debilitating issue is on the inadequacies of governance and youth issues. Youth should not be treated as beneficiaries of the state’s benevolence or an after-thought but important citizens in state making and administration.
Confirmed by the 2015 Youth Situational Analysis conducted by the Ministry of Youth, Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment, supported by UNICEF; the experience of a typical Zimbabwean youth is one of instability and uncertainty, exacerbated by war, displacement, economic crisis and the HIV/Aids pandemic.
They are part of a sociopolitical category that emerged from the collapse of traditional societies under the impacts of colonialism and the post-colonial mobilisation. Others are gripped by despair and a sense that there is no future for them — at least in their spaces of influence. Others throw themselves into desperate, costly, and often dangerous attempts at illegal immigration to more developed, or at least, richer countries outside the continent, in search of employment. The wanton wish to escape the borders is a reflection of an eroding domestic dream; Zimbabwe needs its young people to build it; those dreams need to be captured immediately.
The protracted political and economic crisis affecting Zimbabwe for more than a generation has left many of the youth frustrated and disillusioned.
They see little hope for the future through education or sustainable employment. At the same time they have little voice in governance and politics. Most political systems condescend to young people, relegating their concerns to the margins of debate and bracketing them exclusively with such issues as school and sports. But the challenges however, are significantly greater yet the National Youth Policy explicitly articulates that, then what are we missing? Politics needs to find solutions for this youthful majority of their populations, that is rapidly growing larger, poorer, more discontented, and occasionally, more militant.
It is now common cause to discover that many young people have no idea of the existence of a National Youth Policy, yet review consultations were in motion and their debates and contributions embedded within are poignant.
