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In the next 10 years South Africa is expected to experience a ‘demographic dividend’ where the youthful population will peak, bringing a unique opportunity for rapid human capital development and economic growth, according to the World Bank’s 2007 World Development Report. This is a compelling argument for urgent investment in young people in Africa. The Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) Youth Policy Initiative is working to ensure that the country is prepared to make the most of this ‘youth bulge’. The initiative will bring together experts from the policy, programme and research environments as well as young people in a series of six roundtable meetings to interrogate the key questions of youth development. In collaboration with the major role players in the youth sector, the initiative will highlight key challenges to young people; debate the nature of these challenges and their possible solution, and discuss multi-sectoral approaches to addressing them. The roundtables will be part of 18 months of activities, including public lectures, seminars and the HSRC’s bi-annual research conference. ‘We have high hopes for the young people of our country who will be the leaders of the future, but they need to be brought into the mainstream of policy thinking to ensure a bright future for them and for the country and this is what the Youth Initiative aims to achieve, ‘, says Dr Olive Shisana CEO of the HSRC. ‘Africa is the only part of the world that will experience a “youth bulge” of this type in the next two to three decades,’ says Dr Temba Masilela, executive director of the HSRC’s Policy Analysis Unit. ‘To take advantage of this dividend, sound policies, institutional structures and youth involvement are needed to boost youth capacity.’ South Africa, specifically, will experience a peak in the youthful population in the next 10 years, when a large proportion of the population will fall into the working age range and will have fewer children and elderly people to support. These conditions will last for 20 to 30 years. However, this is a time limited opportunity that will eventually dissolve in the next 2-3 decades. Similar demographic conditions are estimated to have contributed almost 40 percent of the growth in East Asia (Japan, Hong Kong, Korea and Singapore) from 1960 to 1990. Prof. Linda Richter, executive director of the Child, Youth, Family and Social Development research programme at the HSRC said: ‘We know that the current youth cohort is better educated than before, that they are the healthiest sector of the population, and that our constitution grants them agency and platforms to influence political processes and civic life. Yet they still face considerable challenges.’ Some of these challenges include: When access to schooling is expanding, how can we assist more young people to complete their education? Given that our youth are better educated, how can we draw them into the economy and benefit from their talents? With expanded access to family planning, how can we enable young people to choose when and with whom they want to have children? When institutions and opportunities exist for young people to participate meaningfully in civil society, how can we help them get and stay involved? And what second chances can we offer the large cohort of youth who didn’t get a good deal the first time round?
These questions have shaped the topics to be discussed at six roundtable discussions organised by the Youth Policy Initiative over the next 18 months beginning on the 23 May 2003. Young people will also have an opportunity to influence the discussions at the roundtables through a series of innovative approaches to poll their opinions and listen to their views including SMS and internet polls, web cast of events to youth centres, and conversations held with them in the community. Dr Masilela said the roundtable debates will attempt to stimulate creative thinking and move the youth development agenda beyond describing the extent of the challenges, to proposing viable policy and programmatic directions that can be undertaken in a coherent and integrated manner. Given that the South African government is currently in the process of reviewing the National Youth Policy and youth institutional structures, it is therefore timely and appropriate to begin the first roundtable on youth policies and institutions. As such the title of the first roundtable is: Who takes policy decisions in the youth sector? The Youth Policy Initiative is a joint initiative of the Policy Analysis Unit and Child, Youth, Family and Social Development. Dates for roundtable discussions
Roundtable 1: Youth policy and youth institutions, Wednesday 23 May 2007
Roundtable 2: Why youth and why now? Tuesday, 17 July 2007
Roundtable 3: Livelihood strategies, Tuesday 14 August 2007
Roundtable 4: School repetition, drop out and discontinuation, Tuesday, 13 November 2007
Roundtable 5: Pregnancy, Tuesday, 18 March 2008
Roundtable 6: Violence and violent crime, Tuesday, 1 July 2008 Programme, Roundtable 1 Background to the HSRC Youth Policy Initiative Paper, Febè Potgieter-Gqubule
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