PANAPRESS
Panafrican News Agency
President Barrow vows to reduce youth unemployment from 38% to 25%
Banjul, Gambia (PANA) - Gambian president Adama Barrow says that his government's ultimate target is to reduce youth unemployment rate from 38% to 25% in the medium term.
He was speaking on Wednesday at the opening of the Youth Connekt Gambia summit at a local hotel.
The two-day forum brought together relevant government ministries and stakeholders to discuss and strategies on how to achieve Youth Connekt Gambia goals of creating 100,000 jobs by 2021 in sustainable job environment in emerging industries.
‘‘We have increased the budgetary allocation for the Ministry of Youth Sports and its satellite agencies for the better performance through the Ministry and the National Youth Council,’’ he said.
President Barrow said a new policy will be formulated soonest and aligned to the National Development Plan (NDP 2018-2022).
Barrow noted that this is government's firm commitment to strengthen the National Youth Council as the interface between government and young peoples.
He also said this will be fully operational in all the districts and the underlying strategy is to make the council a better channel to communicate government policies and sharing the concern of the youth across the country.
‘‘It is expected that the infrastructure projects inaugurated recently in the Upper River Region will strengthen and improve the economic activities of young entrepreneurs in the region,’’ he pointed out.
According to him, a high impact solution to harnessing the demographic dividend in Africa, Youth Connekt Africa, has been embraced for its innovative design and implantation strategies.
He added that it is for providing the youth with the much needed skills, network and opportunities for them to scale-up their initiative and acquire decent jobs to contribute to economic growth.
President Barrow said this unique Pan-African regional initiative is quite important and relevant for his government as it focuses on very important components of the NDP.
-0- PANA MSS/MA 16Jan2019
He was speaking on Wednesday at the opening of the Youth Connekt Gambia summit at a local hotel.
The two-day forum brought together relevant government ministries and stakeholders to discuss and strategies on how to achieve Youth Connekt Gambia goals of creating 100,000 jobs by 2021 in sustainable job environment in emerging industries.
‘‘We have increased the budgetary allocation for the Ministry of Youth Sports and its satellite agencies for the better performance through the Ministry and the National Youth Council,’’ he said.
President Barrow said a new policy will be formulated soonest and aligned to the National Development Plan (NDP 2018-2022).
Barrow noted that this is government's firm commitment to strengthen the National Youth Council as the interface between government and young peoples.
He also said this will be fully operational in all the districts and the underlying strategy is to make the council a better channel to communicate government policies and sharing the concern of the youth across the country.
‘‘It is expected that the infrastructure projects inaugurated recently in the Upper River Region will strengthen and improve the economic activities of young entrepreneurs in the region,’’ he pointed out.
According to him, a high impact solution to harnessing the demographic dividend in Africa, Youth Connekt Africa, has been embraced for its innovative design and implantation strategies.
He added that it is for providing the youth with the much needed skills, network and opportunities for them to scale-up their initiative and acquire decent jobs to contribute to economic growth.
President Barrow said this unique Pan-African regional initiative is quite important and relevant for his government as it focuses on very important components of the NDP.
-0- PANA MSS/MA 16Jan2019
