COEGA's Mission Towards Solving Youth Unemployment
The South African Youth Trade Association represented by the President and Treasurer met the delegation of COEGA as led by Dr Ayanda Vilakazi. The purpose of the meeting was to view areas of commonality as it relates to youth development in particular. As COEGA has been a catalyst in revamping the social and economic development fabric of the Eastern Cape and to a larger extent the country, this meeting was an integral gathering towards the realization of an improved youth participation in the key sectors of South Africa.
Addressing The Skills Mismatch 🧰
A key deliberation on the agenda was the need to create a robust economy that promotes inclusive socioeconomic development. One of the pillars to this objective is to address the skills mismatch that currently impair young people from playing an active role in the country's economy. The same mismatch is what hinders youth-led businesses from actually scaling up due to a limited capacity on the human capital aspect. In terms of the financial industry, Dr Vilakazi shared with us one of their flagship programs which is to capacitate and increase the participation of young people into STEM subjects, which lay a good foundation and later on equip them for a successful journey in the economical and services sector such at Chartered Accountancy, Investment banking to mention a few.
Youth Participation In Trade 🏦
COEGA has been hailed as a leader of innovation in the trade industry. To date they are the first state-owned entity to obtain approval from Treasury to implement a limited recourse financing model in the public sector and the first SEZ to establish a Capital Office. What this means is that by granting approval for limited recourse finance, Treasury has enabled COEGA and other state-owned entities to pursue large catalytic capital investment projects in support of their developmental mandates without imposing risk to the fiscus and by extension, the taxpayer. It is with this background that we engaged on a meaningful skills transfer as to ensure that barriers of entry are mitigated, and a conducive environment is created for youth businesses especially in trade. The shared sentiments were that the unemployment crisis facing the country was alarming and the need for the development of SMME's was needed as a role player to solving these challenges.
Future Plans đź“’
The meeting ended on a high with COEGA reaffirming their commitment to playing an active role in youth development. Aligning with our mandate which is to expand the borders of youth led businesses, this meeting was catalytic for establishing greater consensus for our upcoming programs.