The Sunday News
Judith Phiri, Sunday News Reporter
THE Zimbabwe Youth Council (ZYC) has facilitated for the formalisation of more than 1 200 youth businesses to be fully operational, in a bid to economically empower youths in the country.
In an interview, ZYC head of business development, data and research services, Mr Sungano Chisina said they were working on economically capacitating youths by formalising their businesses.
“On the economic aspects, there has been an introduction of youth business regularisation where ZYC has managed to assist more than 1 200 youth businesses to formalise their operations. Many youths in Zimbabwe could not access lines of credit and even basic business assistance due to lack of proper documentation and ZYC is resolving that,” said Mr Chisina.
He said there are plenty of programmes being facilitated by ZYC to assist youths to be fully functional in the society economically, socially and politically.
Mr Chisina also said they have been carrying out youth business workshops and seminars to assist the youth with skills as well as linking them to relevant stakeholders who could assist them.
He added: “Youth capacity building programmes are also being carried out around Zimbabwe. There has been also registration of youth associations and lobbying for youth participation in key decision-making processes among other multiple programmes.”
Mr Chisina also highlighted that they were in the process of advocating for the development of the National Youth Act which will see the full implementation of the provisions of the National Youth Policy such as the 25 percent Youth Quota as a way of empowering the youth across sectors.
In addition, he noted that adoption of the youth development and economic empowerment model was essential to fully capacitate and empower youths.
“The youth development and economic empowerment model is a guideline or illustration of the manner at which youth programmes and projects must be facilitated in Zimbabwe.
Many countries have got these models which depict the code of conduct of all youth related programmes. Likewise, Zimbabwe is developing this model so as to set a benchmark on how youth development and economic activities must be carried out,” he said.
He said the model will assist in reducing parallel operations by the Government and other stakeholders, as it will help in the budgetary processes of all youth related programmes by the Government.
Mr Chisina said although there were a lot of programmes targeted at youths, but the manner in which they were carried out was not standardised, hence the need for a model.
“As Government and other stakeholders come by to assist youths, this model will be used to ascertain when and where those programmes must be carried out so as to reduce duplication in an area. So, in other words this will assist in co-ordinating purposes,” he said.
Mr Chisina also stated that Zimbabwe, like other African nations, is experiencing a demographic dividend for youth where there is an increased percentage of the population under 35 years.
He said in the 2021 National Budget, Government acknowledged the importance of assisting youths and there was a significant allocation to the sector, although it still falls short of the expectation.
He added: “We hope the resources will be used to ensure that Vision 2030 is attained since we expect the majority of the middle class to be coming from this current generation of the youth.”
In the 2021 National Budget, Minister of Finance and Economic Development Professor Mthuli Ncube said Government will extend the Youth Employment Tax Incentive (YETI).
The budget also allocated $3,4 billion to the Ministry of Youth, Sport, Recreation and Arts.
