Youth Unemployment and the emergence of the discouraged job seeker

Young people remain particularly stricken by the global financial crisis. Currently, some 73.8 million young people are unemployed globally and the slowdown in economic activity is likely to push another half million into unemployment by 2014.

The youth unemployment rate – which had already increased to 12.6% in 2012 – is expected to increase to 12.9% by 2017. The crisis has dramatically diminished the labour market prospects for young people, and many experience long-term unemployment right from the start of their labour market entry, a situation that was never observed during previous cyclical downturns.

Currently, some 35% of all young unemployed have been out of a job for six months or longer in advanced economies. As a consequence, an increasing number of young people have become discouraged and have left the labour market. Long spells of unemployment and discouragement early on in a person’s career also damages their long-term prospects, as professional and social skills erode and valuable on-the-job experience is not built up.

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Round up of what’s new on Yipe!

Business Startup

How to Go about Setting up Your Small Business
For someone starting out in business, success is the ultimate goal. Many people have the desire to work for themselves or run a small business but often it’s knowing where to start that means people fall at the first hurdle.

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Events

Kenya’s National Youth Summit set to kick off a new era in youth development
Kenya’s National Youth Summit 2013 set to kick off from January 31st to February 1st 2013 will bring together 2,000 young leaders from across the country’s 47 counties to inspire pride, patriotism and social cohesion among the young people.

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Awards:

Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship 2014
The Skoll Foundation provides Skoll Awards every year to select few social entrepreneurs whose proven innovations have demonstrated impact on some of the world’s most pressing problems. The Skoll Award recognizes organizations with the potential to not only be individually successful, but also to catalyze large-scale, system-level change.

Kenya’s National Youth Summit set to kick off a new era in youth development

Kenya’s National Youth Summit 2013 set to kick off from January 31st to February 1st 2013 will bring together 2,000 young leaders from across the country’s 47 counties to inspire pride, patriotism and social cohesion among the young people.

According to the 2009 Kenya Population and Housing Census, the youth aged below 35 years account for more than 70%. This is a significant cohort of the national population that can influence social, economic and political transformation. The youth are therefore critical in achieving the ambitous goals set out in the nation’s development roadmap known as Vision 2030.

With 2013 being a year for general elections, the National Youth Summit is informed by the need to rebrand and inspire young people to act as peace ambassadors who choose to take responsibility and make a difference in their communities.

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Call For Applications for the Fund for Evaluation in Youth Employment

The Fund for Evaluation in Youth Employment was established by the Youth Employment Network (YEN) to contribute to the evidence gap for effective programme design and delivery. The Fund will provide technical and financial support to qualified organizations for designing and conducting their impact evaluation.

The Fund for Evaluation in Youth Employment employs a strategy of LEARNING-APPLYING-SHARING. These three components include building the capacity of practitioners and policy makers to evaluate their youth employment policies and programs.

Funding for this call for applications is only for the support of monitoring and evaluation and does not cover any project delivery associated costs.

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Youth unemployment and the lost generation

A Financial Times article on the Soaring youth unemployment brings to the fore once again the major crisis facing the world today. What to do with the millions of young people without a sustainable means of livelihood?

Even though job creation policies are becoming more ubiquitous, there is a hard to bridge gap between the youth that spend more time being unemployed and their lucky age mates who get employed early.

World Summit Youth Awards 2012

Registration is now open for World Summit Youth Awards 2012 that are open to young people (under the age of 30 years from any of the UN member states) that have developed any sort of innovative project or product using information technology aimed at helping their community.

The applicant may be a developer of website or mobile apps, e-content writer, journalists or writer, application designer, technologist or anyone contributing to address poverty, protecting the environment, sharing knowledge and empowering young people.

Award Highlights

The Youth Award is not a cash award. The reward for winners is to be recognized on a world stage, to be invited to the winners’ events, to be able to connect with each other and discuss with renowned experts in the field of ICT for Development. Last year, winner’s events took place in New York, USA.

The WSYA selects and promotes best practice in e-Content. It demonstrates young people’s potential to create outstanding digital contents and serves as a platform for people from all UN member states to work together in the efforts to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

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Statement by the National Youth Sector Alliance on the Financial Impropriety of the Youth Enterprise Development Fund

Nairobi 29^th May 2012

 

The Youth Enterprise Development fund was launched in 2006 by President Mwai Kibaki with an initial disbursement of KShs1 billion. The fund was established by a legal notice under the State Corporations Act 2007. The fund’s mandate was to address the rising youth unemployment in the country, as well as provide youth entrepreneurs with capital for business startup and growth. The Fund was converted to a state corporation later in 2007, under the ministry of Youth & Affairs and Sports(MOYAS).

 

In a letter dated 28^th November 2008, the Kenya National Audit Office detailed audit queries to the then Chief Executive Officer of the Fund. The Ministry denied having lost any money but confirmed receipt of the investigation report.

 

Internal fights ensued between the then chair Hellen Tombo and then Minister Prof Hellen Sambili over action to address the issues at Management level, consequence of which the then CEO Mr. Wario was suspended. KACC was called in but before the completion of investigations, the then CEO was reinstated without any explanations.

 

As the country heads to the next election, the Youth have become the natural target for votes by all leading contenders of the Presidency, Senators, Governors, Members of Parliament to County, Women and Ward representatives. Action is yet to be seen from Parliament to which YEDF reports its achievements. This issue will be the LITMUS TEST, if indeed young people are priority for them. The time for accountability has come when MPs must demonstrate their commitment to ensuring the benefits of YEDF to young people are real and the funds available are not misdirected.

 

Mismanagement, Impropriety and Embezzlement of Youth Funds

 

The National Youth Sector Alliance (NYSA) takes exception to the issues of impropriety that have freshly emerged at the YEDF. The audit report dated 30^th April 2012 details the misappropriation of millions of shillings from the youth fund in fraudulent claims. The audit, done by the fund’s internal audit team, found questionable imprest claims and payments as follows:

 

1. Weaknesses in the entire system of the Fund
2. Lack of a procurement Specialist
3. Poor performance under contract performance in 2011/2012
4. Engagement of financial sector partners without due diligence to the Public Procurement and Disposal (Public Private Partnership) Regulations, 2009.
5. Exaggerated fuel consumption and misuse of work tickets, and falsification of youth payment schedules by officers of the fund (Outright Theft by the staff) which goes against the Anti-Corruption and Economic Crimes Act, 2004, Public Officers Ethics Act, 2003 and Employment Act, 2007.
6. Lack of proper communication channels
7. Non authentic pre-disbursement under the Business Development Services , where some activities amounting to 1,133,500.00 were paid for but never took place
8. Fictitious receipts for county sensitizations expenditures
9. Impropriety over 4,231,000.00 million that was spent on agri business sensitization
10. Systemic weaknesses originating from lack of an implementation matrix with strategies.

 

The National Youth Sector Alliance can confirm that indeed based on the internal audit, the YEDF has been looted with the full knowledge of very senior government officials.

 

Demands from the Youth of Kenya

 

1. The current MPs and aspiring MPs must demonstrate their commitment to young people in Kenya to access financial services, profitable enterprise, quality (basic) health services, security, representation (the National Youth Council) and protection of basic rights as enshrined in our Constitution.
2. The Board of Directors, Mandated to safeguard the Fund with Fiduciary responsibility, on behalf of the Kenyan youth must take political responsibility; explain to Kenyans their role in the mismanagement of the funds.
3. The Minister and Permanent Secretary, to take Political responsibility and step aside for a proper forensic audit and prosecution of the staff culpable of misappropriation of the funds.
4. The Artoney General and Director of Public Prosecution to institute full investigations into the alleged impropriety, and prosecute the culpable individuals. The Youth shall appoint their independent lawyers to join in the Legal team.
5. As the buck stops with the President and the Prime Minister, the youth of Kenya shall be waiting for immediate action on their commitment to Agenda 4 of the National Accord which they have abrogated to their shelves.

 

The National Youth Sector Alliance shall continue to mobilize young Kenyans from all over the country to begin to pay vigil on these issues until action is taken. The next course of action shall be announced if the above 4 demands are not implemented within 7 Days.

 

About the National Youth Sector Alliance (NYSA)

 

The National Youth Sector Alliance (NYSA) is a conglomeration of over 350 youth organizations, youth sector actors, NGO’s, Societies, FBO’s, CBO’s Youth Groups, among others in the country coming together for purposes of ensuring coherent Policy engagement with Government, Private Sector and other relevant stakeholders.

 

National Youth Sector Alliance (NYSA)

2nd Floor, World Alliance of YMCA Building, PAWA254 Hub

State House Crescent, Off State House Avenue

P.O. Box 8799, 00200, Nairobi Kenya

Cell: +254722619005

Web: http://www.nysa.co.ke

 

Morocco: Remember Tunisia!

One of the numerous youth-led protest stories from the Middle East that has not been getting wide media coverage is that of Morocco where yesterday four unemployed youths self-immolated in front of the country’s parliament. For the strong the images of these young men are available on Storyful. The reason for this act? Once again the dire youth unemployment complex emergency which not only is sweeping the Arab Spring affected countries, but indeed the globe.

The self-immolations in Rabat yesterday cannot fail to evoke memories of Mohammed Bouazizi, the young Tunisian trader who set not only himself alight while protesting the lack opportunities he as a graduate faced; but the match he lit set Tunisia ablaze triggering mass unrest that spread to neighbouring countries emerging into what history books will call the Arab Spring.

Self-immolation is not just a pervasive protest action in the Middle East, but has been also used widely in other parts of the world to significant effect. The earliest were over the Vietnam war in the 1960s. More recently, Buddhist monks protesting China’s rule of Tibet as well as in Burma against the military junta. Though the results of these protests have not made any remarkable changes to the rule of these regimes, they have served to bring the mainstream media spotlight to these protest movements.

Unemployed graduates

According to Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA) which works in poverty alleviation in Morocco, unemployment amongst graduates is 17% while for those without tertiary qualifications it is 4%.

Morocco’s major income earners are agriculture and tourism, both sectors that do not have wide demand for highly skilled knowledge based workers, leaving a significant number of university graduates without jobs. Other large employers are the construction, factories and call-centres who again do not require specific focussed graduate workers. The youths who have been taking part in the country’s protests since early January are members of an informal association of unemployed graduates who in the ‘occupy spirit’ had taken over the administrative building block of the Ministry of Higher Education. These young people, some with master’s degrees have been decrying the lack of jobs available in the public sector saying that the only work available tends to fit only those with high school and vocational training qualifications. Even government initiatives to provide public sector job opportunities such as giving golden handshake early retirement opportunities to older civil servants so that young people can replace them have only go so far.

The situation has also been exacerbated by an education system that mainly equips students for work in the public sector.

Though the Arab Spring has caused leaders to institute reforms, such as Morocco’s King Mohamed VI who pledged to cut the youth unemployment rate, persistent and growing youth unemployment will continue to contribute to the spread of unrest in the Middle East, where according to the IMF youth unemployment in the region is 25% which exceeds any other region in the world.

However, we also need to ask whether in an economic climate which cannot mop up the number of highly educated workers into the job market, whether university education and not vocational qualifications is really required? What use is a theoretically based worker in a country that needs practical hands-on workers with work-ready skills? It’s about time that governments placed more emphasis on equipping the youth with high-quality vocational qualifications.

UN-Habitat Urban Youth Fund – 4th Call for applications

The UN-HABITAT invites young people based in cities or towns from the developing world to apply for grants of up to USD 25,000. The deadline for applications is April 15th 2012.

To qualify for a grant, the project must be led by young people aged 15-32, and be based in cities or towns in developing countries.

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A.J. Muste Memorial Fund, International Nonviolence Training Grants – Call for Applications

The A.J. Muste Memorial Institute funds projects which promote the principles and practice of nonviolent social change through grantmaking programs including the International Nonviolence Training Fund (INTF).

The INTF was created in 1994 by a group of concerned donors with the aim of specifically supporting nonviolence trainings. (For information about our other grantmaking programs, please see the grants page on http://www.ajmuste.org/ajgrants.html )

Nonviolence trainings seek to help people develop and improve the skills they need to confront systemic injustice through organized, principled, nonviolent action. Trainings promote the exchange of ideas, information, and strategies, through which activists can become more effective at using nonviolent action in their struggles.

INTF GRANTMAKING PRIORITIES

The INTF supports nonviolence training outside the United States, and within Native nations in the US.

Projects eligible for support include:

• Those which build capacity and leadership among people engaged in nonviolent struggles;
• Those which prepare participants for specific nonviolent actions or campaigns;
• Those geared to “training the trainers,” in order to expand and multiply nonviolence training throughout a targeted community.

Preference is given to:

• Projects which involve trainers from the local area or region, where such trainers are available.
• Groups which are small, community-based and have less access to funding from other sources.

The maximum grant amount is US$3,000.

The INTF does not fund:

• Trainings which are geared primarily toward resolving conflicts between individuals, building life skills or job skills, or achieving personal empowerment or economic independence.
• Conflict resolution or violence reduction programs which do not directly promote activism for social justice.
• Scholarships or other funding for people to travel abroad to attend courses or training sessions.
• Trainings with budgets over US$50,000, or organizations with annual budgets over US$500,000.

The Muste Institute can and does directly fund organizations which do not have their own 501(c)3 non-profit tax-exempt status, and/or which are not incorporated. The only time the Institute requires a fiscal sponsor is if the organization does not have its own bank account. If you cannot receive a grant directly (with the grant check made out to the name of your organization), please indicate this in your proposal and include information about your fiscal sponsor, including a letter indicating the sponsor’s tax-exempt status and some basic information such as a brochure or brief annual report.

WHEN TO APPLY TO THE INTF

The next deadlines for proposals for the International Nonviolence Training Fund is December 2^nd 2011.

The review and decision process takes approximately four months.

The INTF does not consider proposals for trainings which will have already taken place by the time its decision is made, so you are urged to apply at least four to five months before your training is set to begin, especially if you need preparation time for the training after notification of the grant decision.

Groups which receive INTF grants must generally wait two years before applying again to the INTF.

HOW TO APPLY TO THE INTF

To submit a proposal, fill out completely the INTF Grant Application Form: http://ajmuste.org/INTFGrantApplicationForm.doc

Email the completed form (preferably in MS Word or RTF format) with all required attachments to intf(at)ajmuste.org  with the subject line “INTF:” followed by the name of your group.

NOTE: If you are awarded a grant, you will have to provide a complete financial accounting for all funds received from the Muste Institute, demonstrating that they were used in accord with the grant agreement. This accounting is due as soon as the money is spent or within six months, whichever comes first. If funds from a grant remain unspent after six months, you must submit an updated accounting every six months until the complete grant is spent. This financial accounting should be accompanied by copies of materials produced with Institute funds, and a brief narrative report on the project.

Go to http://www.yipekenya.org/News.htm to find more grant opportunities