"Research shows that 66% of the population in Tanzania is made of young people under 25 who are more literate than their parents' generation yet today, they make up 60% of the unemployed”. This was said by Mr. Nicas Ngumba, Manager of Restless Development during the August Policy Forum breakfast debate at the British Council.
Mr. Nicas mentioned two key policies which address some of these youth issues/challenges as being 2006 National Population Policy which seeks to promote youth participation in decision making, to facilitate youth access to valuable resources for self-reliance and to promote the rights of youth, and the 2007 Youth Development Policy which looks to support youths’ affairs and provisions the government would provide.
He said that from the survey which they conducted, 21% of respondents could not list a policy familiar to them. The top three policies that they were able to list were for HIV/AIDS control, Mkukuta II, and Anti-corruption.
Furthermore, he revealed other findings of the survey as; 40% of participants did not know their village chairperson and rural participants were less aware of governmental policies and their rights compared to urban participants.
On the participation of the youth in the on-going constitution making process, he said research shows that fewer numbers of youth participate in it and attributed this to lack of information on the part of the community about the opportunity and insufficient knowledge of the current constitution.
“We always have a policy to overcome challenges or social problems. If you look at the current challenges like HIV, teenage pregnancies, unemployment, poverty and others of the like, you will find that it is the youth who are most affected." This was said by the second presenter at the debate Mr. Julius Tweneshe, Senior Youth Officer, Ministry of Information, Youth, Culture and Sports
Mr. Julius mentioned one of the challenge of the 1996 National Youth Development Policy being the definition of the word “youth” as entailing people between the ages between 15 and 24. The others were technological changes and political changes in society and new approach to policy issues addressed by the government such as increasing of participation of stakeholders.
He said by the government expanding the number of years of youth, it meant an increase in the number of youth participation.
During the plenary discussion, participants stressed the importance of being knowledgeable on such issues to participate so there was a need to put emphasis on sound training, education, entrepreneurship and socialization so as to create awareness amongst the youth and promote their participation on issues.
To see the presentations see the attachments below: