South Africa was in dire need of a youth-specific employment strategy to effectively deal with the country’s excessive levels of unemployment, Trade and Industry Minister Dr Rob Davies said on Monday.

Speaking at the launch of the Youth Enterprise Development Strategy (YEDS) and the opening of the Micro Enterprise Development Organisation (MEDO) youth-focused Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Incubator he said government realised that it needed a package of measures to address the problem and create more employment opportunities for the youth.

The YEDS, which was a policy instrument offered by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) in response to the call to address the problem made in the New Growth Path, aimed to promote youth self-employment and youth-owned and -managed enterprises that would ensure that young people actively participated in strengthening and growing the economy.

“We have learned that two-thirds of our youth entrepreneurs are self-taught and are informal. For our strategy to be effective we need youth targets set aside in priority sectors and it is important for us to strengthen the capabilities of these informal businesses. The DTI has set itself the target of increasing the percentage of youth-managed start-up businesses from 5% to 50%,” Davies said.

Meanwhile, the MEDO youth-focused ICT Incubator was funded through the DTI’s incubation support programme.

“We are trying to bring a major change in how business is being done in South Africa. We want to create an environment where local small suppliers can be so well capacitated that they would be able to supply our private sector, doing away with their dependence on imported goods. The ultimate goal is to see our entrepreneurs producing value-added products that would compete with the import influx,” noted Davies.

MEDO CEO Judi Sandrock said, since its inception, the MEDO had done away with barriers to entry in the ICT market.

“To date, more than 800 entrepreneurs have gone through our programme and with the support from the DTI I can confirm that we are in a favourable position to take in even more aspirant entrepreneurs through our doors,” she pointed out.