Investing in youths to achieve Vision 2030

IN any country, youths form the backbone of the nation and are the rock on which the future can be built.

The younger generation constitutes tomorrow’s leaders and in the present can be entrepreneurs, employers and workers that drive a country’s economic development and social transformation.

Their role in everyday life is, therefore, important as they are capable of significantly contributing to nation building through their energy, ideas and skills to make the country a better place for all.

To that end, Zimbabwe every year since 2017 commemorates the National Youth Day on February 21 to mark and reflect on issues affecting young people in the country.

The annual event is also meant to recognise and celebrate their contributions in many spheres of life and several sectors of the economy.

This year’s commemorations ran under the theme ‘Positioning Youth Empowerment and Development Towards Achieving Vision 2030’. And as alluded to by the theme, Zimbabwe is making huge strides towards achieving that end.

According to the Constitution of Zimbabwe, youths are defined as people between the ages of 15 and 35. At over 60 percent, they currently constitute the bulk of Zimbabwe’s population.

As such, the Second Republic under President Mnangagwa’s astute leadership remains committed and is moving to effectively address issues affecting young people through the Youth Empowerment, Development and Vocational Training Ministry.

The New Dispensation is formulating and implementing policies, programmes and initiatives that inculcate the national ethos and values in young people so that they meaningfully contribute to national development.

This is encapsulated in one of the key pillars of the National Development Strategy (NDS1) – Youth, Sports and Culture – which seeks to mainstream the Youth Policy across all sectors of the economy as well as enhance or increase youth participation in development and decision making processes.

The idea, in line with the national devolution agenda, is to ensure that no one and no place is left behind.

Ultimately, it speaks to Zimbabwe’s pursuit of an empowered and prosperous upper-middle income society through Vision 2030.

Empowering the young generation and capacitating them to be active players in the economy, therefore, becomes a vital cog in national development.

As the most productive age, the youths need to be equipped with the necessary skills and have the requisite resources availed to them so as to give them fair and equal access to economic opportunities and activities.

Opportunities in different sectors of the economy like agriculture, mining, tourism, Information Communication Technology, transport and logistics, manufacturing, sport and arts must be opened up for them to prove their mettle.

Vocational Training Centres are being established throughout the country to provide essential skills training that enable young people to start their own income-generating projects and create employment for themselves and others.

The establishing of innovation hubs and industrial parks must give them the impetus to lead in research and provide smart solutions to challenges facing the country, like climate change and droughts, among others.

The Empower Bank, which primarily funds projects and programmes for the younger generation, can give them the muchneeded momentum to kick-start their entrepreneurial ventures.

All these initiatives help to create an enabling environment for the youths to thrive in whatever undertaking, thereby broadening their horizons in life.

To that end, as a nation we must all rally around fighting the drug and substance abuse scourge that is threatening to ruin the present and future of young people.Therefore, it cannot be over emphasised that we need to ensure that the next generation is absolutely drug-free.

Youths are the most vulnerable group to drugs exposure and we should guard against them being trapped into that pitfall. We cannot afford to have our young people waste away while they fail to make a difference in economic development and social transformation of the country.

Since young people are vital assets to the economic, political and social development of the country, they are the vanguard and repository of our national collective future aspirations as a nation.