The Department of Small Business Development (DSBD) is scheduled to host a youth engagement in partnership with the EU-SA Dialogue Facility under the theme “Unlocking Innovative Finance for Youth Enterprise” on 10 November 2022.

Youth unemployment   worsened during the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent natural disasters that occurred in some parts of the country which destroyed the lives and livelihoods of many people particularly in KwaZulu-Natal. 

The country needs urgent mechanism to stimulate economy growth and begin to reverse the levels of unemployment, more so, amongst young people. According to the National Development plan NDP 2030, the government in partnership with private sector and social economy players is expected to directly and indirectly create 11 million jobs to help eradicate unemployment in South Africa.

The Dialogue Facility has been identified as a strategic engagement with the young people from all sectors to begin a process to find pragmatic solutions to end unemployment. According to Minister of Small Business Development, Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams “we will not win the battle against unemployment for as long we have more job seekers than young people who are eager to innovate and create new ventures”.

The Minister is optimistic that our targeted support as the Department of Small Business Development would certainly bring about change in the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem in line with our mandate to empower, support and develop small to medium enterprises in the country.

In addition, this engagement will assist to obtain youth enterprises experiences, perspectives as well as utilizing the inputs to inform DSBD strategies, policies, and programmes to target improved support and grant an opportunity to discover and exchange ideas with the youth sector role players.

Source: Government of South Africa