Skill acquisition is the surest sustainable employment path – Bawumia

Vice President, Dr Mahamadu Bawumia, has charged the youth to develop a can-do mindset to build a sustainable future while striving to pursue skills that will drive the country toward realising its transformation agenda.

This comes on the back of a projection that the country’s labour force will realise an addition of about 6 million young people by 2024.

“The surest way to a sustainable employment path will not come from waiting for a job, but rather by encouraging ourselves to apply our creativity and skills toward building opportunities across fields,” he said.

Addressing youth delegates during the opening ceremony of the Ghana Youth Congress at Gomoa Fetteh, he highlighted several efforts being undertaken by the government to empower the youth.

These include stakeholder engagement for skill revitalisation in several sectors of the economy.

“For example, the banking sector is engaging in skills development programmes for at least 150,000 youth over the next three years; and the tourism, arts and culture sector targets to train and certify 10,000 persons by 2023 on specific tourism and cultural skills.”

Additionally, he said, there is ongoing construction and modernisation of all National Vocational Training Institutes (NVTIs) and Opportunity Industrialisation Centres (OIC).

The Youth Start initiative, which will support young entrepreneurs in gaining access to capital, training, technical skills and mentoring to launch and operate their businesses is also being promulgated.

He said these initiatives have been carefully designed as a direct response to the COVID-19 pandemic, to revitalise and transform the economy precisely for the youth to build forward better.

The Ghana Youth Congress was organised by the Christian Council of Ghana. It was held on the theme 'Ghana; My Home, My Future'.

The Congress is a precursor to the African Youth Congress to be organised by the All-Africa Conference of Churches (AACC). It is aimed at engaging Africa’s youth to build moral character, explore opportunities that exist on the continent, and help disabuse their minds about supposed greener pastures elsewhere.

The General Secretary of the All-Africa Conference of Churches (AACC), Rev. Dr Fidon Mwombeki, explained that the African Youth Congress initially scheduled for 2020 had to be rescheduled due to COVID-19.

Against this background, he said: “To hold this Congress despite COVID-19, which we must all learn to live with, I must congratulate you,” adding, “Let Africa now show the world that it is possible to live and work despite COVID-19”.

Explaining the idea behind the Congress, the AACC since 2018, according to Dr Mwombeki, decided to focus on inspiring the young people of Africa to reject the negative narratives of doom that are associated with Africa and focus on the positive realities of Africa.

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