UN chief preaches closing gap between systems
Baboki Kayawe | Friday August 19, 2016 15:25
The Johannesburg-based UNFPA East and Southern Africa regional director, Julitta Onabanjo, told Mmegi that though Botswana was doing well towards positioning young people to be leaders in development, given the country’s investment in social factors such as the education system, there was need for prudence in aligning resources with economic output.
Onabanjo who was in the country this week, said all stakeholders need to have forethoughts about future adults being groomed now. Therefore, she believes what is done in terms of ensuring the youth stays centered to that agenda must be sustainable beyond 2030.
This developmental agenda, called Sustainable Development Goals or post-2015 Millennium Development Goals is set to be attained in the coming 15 years.
Part of Botswana’s 2030 agenda realisation depends on the establishment of a thriving private sector capable of creating solutions to prevalent challenges such as youth unemployment.
“While we are seeing more progress in other countries where the private sector is also looking at employing and creating jobs, in Botswana I think the catch is how is the private sector developed here,” she said.
She emphasised the need to expand the sector as a critical partner in development just as its role is espoused in Vision 2036.
She added that the issue of youth unemployment is one that the United Nations (UN) system has taken very strongly and looked at what potential solutions exist. This is because it is not only just the ability of government to create jobs, but also as a great stakeholder that needs to be engaged in job creation, she said.
“We need to look at what factors are influencing job creation, one to match between skills set and what is needed in the economy. It is about who is creating the jobs. What we know about unemployment is that no matter how much we try the public sector cannot absorb everyone,” Onabanjo said.
It is significant to consider whether young people are interested in creating jobs through providing solutions to social problems and entrepreneurial skills while they wait to bridge in the mainstream market.
Further, she said young people need skills to think entrepreneurial – these can be enabled through the education system. In addition, Onabanjo said having access to small loans to start-up business and mentorship are crucial.
She encouraged Botswana to take up models, already implemented in countries like Kenya, under which young people are engaged to solve social issues and provide solutions geared towards employment creation. At present her agency is looking into whether Botswana is willing and ready to exploit such a model.
Further, she said it is worrisome that local data reveals unemployment among young females stands at 40%, while among young males in 29% — a gender issue that needs to be looked closely at.
“We know that when a woman or a young girl is not economically empowered there are repercussions for the family and society,” adding that to choose to educate other young people, she always buys food for the family before anything, it is important that women are economically empowered.
On the role of education in ensuring that young people take the lead in development, she said while many countries in Southern Africa have tried to ensure enrolment in education particularly in primary education and to see that move to secondary, but even more important to tertiary, Botswana remains exemplary.
“In Botswana we are seeing that transition,” Onabanjo said. “But still, there’s a significant number of young people. So there is a gap there.”
However, she hastened to say tertiary education is not the only education needed, though many times people are trapped into the idea of graduate degrees as being the ultimate education.
For this education to create opportunities for young people, and indeed the economy, she said there should be critical consideration of the skill sets that are being developed into the youth to match national growth aspirations, either export-driven growth, beyond the extractive industries, to technology around manufacturing and agriculture beyond subsistence practices.
“While many African countries boast about enrolment, the quality is not always the best therefore lacks sustainability,” she noted.
Moreover, she said the education system in many of the region’s countries, not necessarily Botswana, has allowed room for especially exploitation of young girls who are sent away to boarding facilities, as opposed to empowerment.
“We see that it is within the education system where young people, particularly young girls vulnerable, so there is a need to make the education system safe and not only empowering,” she emphasised.
In addition to unemployment, the other set of challenges that really affects young people, she said are their sexual needs and reproductive health.
The fact is that they find themselves at a time when they are experimenting with calls for appropriate information and services.
The minister of Education and Skills Development, Unity Dow has been on record saying over 400 teenagers dropped out of-school due to pregnancy last year alone.
Onabanjo said this is unacceptable.
“UNFPA particularly looks at ensuring that young people have the education and therefore anything that prevents them from being fully educated we work with,” she adds.
The agency deals with sexual and health reproductive education among the youth to enable this population to make the right choices as they transition from childhood to adulthood through adolescent. She emphasised the role of sexual reproductive health education in facilitating this transition.
“Unplanned pregnancies, including those that occur due to child sexual abuse, are bad as that really starts a vicious cycle of poverty,” she adds. “Education is key to ensuring that they make the right decisions.”
Responding to concerns on growing incidents of illegal abortions that claim lives, Onabanjo said prevention of recourse to have abortion has to be promoted through availing information, widening up access to contraceptives. She also blamed the stigma associated with young people going into facilities to ask for contraceptive methods.
“In this country, and many countries in Southern Africa, we still we have an unmet need of contraceptives. Young people want to plan their families. They don’t want to have unplanned pregnancies, but they just don’t know where to get contraceptives,” she said.
“There is a need for innovative ways to access contraceptives from youth friendly service providers and platforms that don’t begin to dwell in the judgmental attitude that other service providers have.”
She proposed emergency contraceptives, not only the condom, but a mixed method to ensure that if young girls have had unprotected sex, pregnancy is preventable.
“It is clear particularly for Africa where there is a youthful population that the sustainable development agenda is really about this generation, hence the need for systems to position them for meaningful participation in development,” she said.