The African Policy Dialogue organized a stakeholder engagement on youth employment in Ghana. ‘The Way Forward for Sustainable Youth Employment’ is an initiative by the Department of Economics, University of Ghana Legon, the Ghana Netherlands Business and Culture Council (GNBCC) and the Netherlands African Business Council (NABC) with support from INCLUDE Knowledge platform.
The session was attended by over hundred people from various sectors: private sector, public sector, knowledge institutions, NGOs/CSOs, political parties and support institutions. Young people were also present during the meeting to share their opinions. When making policies about the youth, their perspective should also be part of the equation. The aim of the session was to encourage the exchange of existing and new knowledge across sectors in Africa.
The meeting was opened by Bright Wireko-Brobby, Deputy Minister of Employment and Labour Relations who emphasized on the importance of youth empowerment. Gladys Ofei, Senior Trade Officer at the Netherlands Embassy in Ghana in her speech encouraged participants to share their knowledge to create more opportunities for the youth in Ghana.
The challenge of generating adequate quality of employment for the growing labour market entrants remains a major socio-economic and political problem in Ghana which is highlighted by Prof. William Baah-Boateng as described in his latest research paper. This research paper ‘Africa Youth Employment Insights: Ghana Brief’ summarized the challenges and recommendations to build towards sustainable youth employment in Ghana.
The participants had different round table discussions on possibilities for youth employment across sectors. All the input gathered during the meeting will feed into a discussion paper on youth employment in Ghana and will be followed up by expert meeting in the beginning of 2021.
INCLUDE platform is a Dutch-African platform that promotes evidence-based policymaking on inclusive development in Africa through research, knowledge sharing and policy dialogue.
