26 Jun 2016

Minister of Youth, Sport and Culture, Mr Thapelo Olopeng said every government wished to see its young people flourish in good health, to be well educated and grow up to be successful and responsible citizens. 

Officially opening the meeting of SADC ministers responsible for youth in Gaborone on Thursday, Mr Olopeng said there was need to tap on the youth abundant energy, creativity and capabilities with respect and good will. 

Minister Olopeng stated that the youthful enthusiasm made the youth ideal candidates of explorers and innovators of solutions to many challenges that faced the SADC region today. 

“When we believe in them and give them space to explore, we gain their trust as leaders and when they trust us they begin to believe in their own potential and self-worthiness,” he said. 

He stated that the current generation of young people in the region faced challenges such as unemployment, health risks such as HIV/AIDS and lack of relevant skills for self-reliance and employability. 

The minister highlighted that as a result of those challenges, many youth were trapped in vicious cycles where they grow up poor reinforcing an intergenerational cycle of poverty and vulnerability. 

He further said this cycle of poverty created an increasing number of dependence and forced governments to divert more funds towards social welfare therefore slowing down the development of countries. 

Minister Olopeng stated that the youth minister’s meeting presented an opportunity to build upon and come up with solutions to address the growing challenges of the youth in SADC. 

He indicated that with three quarters of the population of SADC being under the age of 35, young people were the biggest and most valuable asset this region has ever had. 

The minister said it was therefore critical that they focused their efforts on what to do better to ensure they transform the young population in to a force for accelerated socio economic development in the SADC region. 

The minister indicated that SADC recognised the important role played by young people in the development of the region adding that SADC had taken measures to mainstream youth in to all policy and strategies. 

He highlighted that it was their responsibility as ministers and government leaders to ensure that commitments and strategies were translated in to national programmes that could deliver services to the youth. 

“To ensure that we reap benefits of our strategic decisions we should put in place strong mechanisms to monitor, evaluate and report on our youth development initiatives.” ENDS