11 Aug 2021

This year priority for Youth Development Fund (YDF) funding will be given to businesses with a potential to create higher numbers of employment, Minister of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development has said .

“This has always been the guiding principle for YDF funding, as a strategy to create employment for the youth, but has become even more important now with the budget reduced, and business environment constrained,” Mr Tumiso Rakgare, said in a statement delivered to Parliament on Tuesday. He added that this year, some sectors with the potential to create higher numbers of employment would be prioritised.

Such sectors, he said included manufacturing agriculture, technology, digitisation and innovation initiatives because they were capable of performing well under the current economic and health situations.

“They can also be used to spur the economy to perform better, creating jobs for the youth and reducing unemployment,” he stated. The minister also informed Parliament that the ministry had extended applications for the YDF flagship programme activities for the current financial year from August 10-20.

He explained that the decision followed challenges encountered by different outstations as well as applicants due to COVID-19 related issues.

Mr Rakgare indicated that while the extension was not desirable, the ministry felt that on account of the prevailing environment such would give young people a fair chance to compete for funding.

Generally, he said, there was high level of interest in the YDF programme as demonstrated by the number of youth who usually attended its orientations, collected application forms as well as that of applications submitted. “Usually, we receive around 2 000 applications per cycle, of which we are only able to fund about 1 000 projects, with some of the funds going towards training, monitoring and support,” he added.

Furthermore, Mr Rakgare stated that the YDF programme continued to show that given a chance, young people could help the country realise the priority of job creation. He said during monitoring visits to youth projects across the country, YDF beneficiaries had proven to be doing well, hence government’s commitment to ensure that young people were able to access start-up funding.

Also, he said the programme had shown potential to contribute to the alleviation of unemployment and poverty, especially amongst young people.

However, he regretted that despite some of the success stories, youth businesses continued to be plagued by challenges such as high rentals for operating spaces, limited markets, shortage of operating land or operating spaces and competition from established businesses.

“It is for this reason that I wish to appeal to all stakeholders to ensure that these youth businesses are deliberately supported,” he stated. The programme had been receiving a budget allocation of P120 million per annum over the years and was distributed at a rate of P2 million per constituency.

The allocation was used for funding both youth business proposals and entrepreneurship training, with individual start-up businesses funded to a maximum of P100 000 each.

The programme also funded a group of five to 10 young people (youth industry) to a maximum of P450 000 under the same conditions, with loan component repaid over a period of five years and a penalty of five per cent interest on arrears charged on defaulters. Mr Rakgare said for the financial year 2021/22, the programme had been financed at a budget of P104 million.

Parliament also learnt that due to uncertainties and restrictions imposed on the normal social and economic activities, the 2020-2021 edition of the YDF was not implemented, and the funds allocated were used to, among other things, fund 171 appeals at a total cost of about P15.3 million, land banks development at a cost of P7.5 million and COVID-19 relief for YDF businesses. ENDS