YouthNet and YES Campaign

youth employment systems

In September 2002, under the co-chair of President Bill Clinton and First Lady Mrs.Suzanne Mubarak, 1600 delegates from 120 countries launched the decade long YES campaign. The YES campaign is a youth-led response to the enormous global challenge of youth unemployment. YouthNet is the host organization to the global Youth Employment Summit (YES) Campaign in Nagaland.

Nagaland State Youth Consultation on Employment under YES Campaign.

Background and Rationale:

YES Nagaland organized two state level consultations and a series of 11 district level consultations, with the goal of creating sustainable youth-led livelihood and entrepreneurship development programs under the banner of YES Fund programme, in partnership with the Government and private sectors, from April 2007 until June 2008.

Objectives of the Consultation:

  1. To initiate a systematic and methodical thinking process for creating employment through youth engagement.
  2. To draw together these plans concepts, beliefs, and thoughts into a “Bank of Ideas” which would aid the Government and other stakeholders in the planning process for employment generation and develop programmes and policies that will enhance employment opportunities for youth.
  3. To identify and award funding to one promising idea per district for developing into pilot projects. These pilots would be evaluated for scale-up or replication with the support of the government and the private sector. This projects would be in the form of pilot projects with various departments of the Government and private sectors.

Participatory Project Design:

  • Youth Led Innovative Program Implementation
  • Seed Grant Projects for Entrepreneurship Development
  • Developing multi-stakeholder partnerships for program design
  • Building local capacity for program implementation
  • Community Driven Development: The Campaign encourages youth to become job providers and not job seekers within own capacity, strengths and available resources.

The Methodology for the Consultation:

The consultation was conducted in all the eleven district headquarters following a uniform structure. The methodology was participatory based on strength –based approach. The lead in statement for the technical sessions was emphasized on the three thematic areas of the consultation:

  1. Building an entrepreneurial culture
  2. Natural resources and livelihood
  3. Promoting youth employment through Information Communication Technology (ITC).

Formulation of aspirations, ideas and action were introduced as a guide to support discussion on the thematic areas.

Process: For the technical session, student leaders, youth leaders, young entrepreneurs and unemployed youth representing the different areas of the respective districts were invited as official delegates. The technical session dwelt upon three thematic areas, relevant to the interest of the theme ‘Back to the Land’ in conjunction with the ‘Year of the Farmer.’ Viz. Building an entrepreneurial culture, natural resources and livelihood and promoting youth employment through Information Communication Technology(ICT).

This consultation was reported as first of its kind where the participants themselves were the resource persons speaking on behalf of other youths on youth employment issues. The youth expressed and shared their views and ideas with great enthusiasm taking the discussion till late in the evening. This consultation led to the recognition that unless young people are involved in designing policy and developmental strategy that matters to them, the whole question of acceptability, accountability and delivery cannot be met.

Findings and Discussions:

The consultation has been able to identify three key areas to facilitate youth participation and employment.

  1. Youth Involvement
  2. Youth Development
  3. Youth Employment
Youth Involvement

The consultation recognizes the general feeling in young people that they are being marginalized on issues that matter to them. Frustration looms around over lack of employment opportunities within the state in other sectors; the government sector having reached a saturation stage. Many blamed the education system for being too traditional and quantity based and not focusing on quality. Students after completion of their academic years are left with no choice to even think of employment beyond government job. Another factor that emerged is the lack of infrastructure establishment that is important to create an enabling environment for youth to take up innovative ventures for self employment

Youth Development

The state government has recognized the importance of youth and their role in contributing towards development of the state and had announced year 2004 and 2005 as the year of youth empowerment. The Endeavour is ‘to ensure that every young man and woman is gainfully employed with opportunities to develop his/her capacities and functional capabilities’ (State Human Development Report (UN) 2004). The focus areas to facilitate the creation of employment were agri and allied sectors, small scale industries and IT.

The education system which needs to, by and large take care of the entire development of individual and not only academic achievements. Early exposures and orientation on the various job opportunities and development strategies will greatly enhance the outlook of the young people towards job seeking.

The third factor is the infrastructure development which is the duty and responsibility of the state to provide to its citizens. Basic facilities like proper road connectivity, power, water, communication, sanitation, education and improving the living conditions are all crucial to enhance the capability and capacity of individuals. Unless these basic requirements are met, the environment will never be conducive for exploring out into new ventures. ‘As early as 1986, the ILO was indicating that while temporary work experience and training schemes for young people had a role to play, they were not a substitute for sound macroeconomic policy….. Youth policy should not be viewed as a set of measures to compensate for the failure of macroeconomic policy.” (ILO, Report on the Committee on Youth, Geneva, 1987)

Therefore taking these broad areas into consideration the problems for youth employment should be viewed as a larger macroeconomic issue of the state. Greater participation, involvement and partnership of the government, public and private should be addressed to create this environment for youth involvement, development and employment.

YouthNet has also trained and funded youths in the field of sericulture (rearing cocoons, spinning yarn) , piggery, hair cutting and saloons, and very shortly training in automobiles etc.