International Youth Day 2016  - HFFG And UKAID Tackle Youth Poverty In Ghana With Skills Training Program

Making up nearly one-third of the population, their future is heavily influenced by structural factors, such as wealth and income inequality, and access to education and employment. As the World marks International Youth Day 2016 on the theme, “The Road to 2030: Eradicating Poverty and Achieving Sustainable Production and Consumption”, we need to collectively make conscious efforts to get the dreams of this generation realised else we as a nation are doomed. Aware of the central role that young people play in Ghana’s future, we wish to draw every ones to the fact that youth poverty and unemployment is of grave concern and that a lot more needs to be done by various stakeholders, right from the personal, family, community and national levels to ensure that the Ghana benefits from the demographic dividend and achieve the SDGs.

Addressing poverty worldwide is so crucial that, the first of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) is to “End poverty in all its forms”.

According to an IMF and World Bank, 2016, although there has been some progress globally in poverty reduction, the number of people living in extreme poverty globally remains unacceptably high. It was estimated that as at 2015, about 700 million people were living in extreme poverty.

During the last quarter-century, more than 1 billion people have lifted themselves out of extreme poverty; however, a large percentage of the remaining poor are deeply poor, with income levels far below the poverty line.

In Ghana, the recent Poverty and Inequality Report (March 2016) indicates that although Ghana has experienced per capita growth over the years, inequality has been on the rise in country since 1992, with the highest levels of inequality and poverty being recorded in rural areas and among women and young people.

Several factors contribute to poverty including poor people’s lack of resources, an extremely unequal income distribution in the world and within specific countries, conflict, and hunger.

Irrespective of cause, there is a general consensus that the provision of employment opportunities is one of the major solutions to reducing poverty.

Empirical studies also indicate that progress on ending poverty (SDG 1) cannot be achieved without progress on other SDGs including SDG 8 which is to “Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all” and SDG 10 – to “Reduce inequality within and among countries.”

Youth unemployment continues to be a global phenomenon that has been identified as the single biggest challenge confronting policy makers in Ghana. About half (48%) of the youth in the country, who are between 15-24 years do not have jobs.

In Ghana, youth are less likely than adults to be working: in 2012, about 52% of people aged 15-24 were employed (compared to about 90% for the 25-64 population), a third were in school, 14% were inactive and 4% were unemployed actively looking for job. Young women in the same age group are particularly disadvantaged and have much higher inactivity rates that men: 17% of young female are inactive as opposed to 11% of males.

As part of efforts to address youth unemployment and youth poverty in the country, the Hope for Future Generations with funding from UKAID through Palladium has initiated a Skills Training Programme called STAR CAMP under the Ghana Adolescent Reproductive Health Project which is being implemented in the Brong Ahafo Region.

HFFG has for the past 15 years engaged young people in a number of skills training some of which include, making of pastries, barbering, pedicure and recently bead making among others to get them some income to take care of their basic needs. 120 young people have been trained under the program this year and within 3 months of the training 3 of the participants have been able to start their own small businesses as a result of the skills training received from the STAR CAMP.

It is our hope that stakeholders would come to the aid of these young people and others in similar predicaments with assistance to enable them expand their businesses and create opportunities for other young people.

Experts have projected Ghana’s unemployment rate to increase from 5.2% to 9% by the year 2020. As Hope for Future generations and her partners remain committed to make its programmes and activities sustainable to help bridge the unemployment and poverty gaps, it is expected that policy makers and other stakeholders will play their part to ensure that Goal 1 of the SDGs is achieved.