National Youth Policy and Advocacy
Zambia has had a youth policy as far back as 1994 whose main interest was to take care of the young people's welfare and interests. for me the policy fails short of addressing main stake of the youth challenges that the youth of today are facing. We do appreciate the need to provide a policy that is more protective but then it should be very broad enough to address the needs of today's world. Many zambian youths will agree with me that there is no link between the Enterprenuership policy and Youth policy ...What is there is to day in Zambia is a fragmented piece meal that has been and is still failling the majority in Zambia(52%). Many Zambians who are enterprenuerial minded have been not until this year january very left in the dark. All the policy frameworks and iniatives including the implementation startegies does not support young people both at nation and community level. I will comment more letter. Zambian- BWALO
Thanks Bwalo for your contribution. I take note that you mention that the Zambia youth policy fails short of addressing the main challenges of young people - were young people consulted in the policy development process? maybe their participation would have provided a realistic check on what young people's challenges are. You have raised an important issue regarding the link between entrepreneurship policy and the national youth policy - without the synergy it becomes a huge challenge to coherently prioritise as well as maximise on use of resources on implementation of entrepreneurship initiatives that as well could address general youth development challenges. The debate can go further, how far have youth policies been integrated into national development policies/plans?
Isaac, most of our policies in Africa seem to always enjoy fine political will and the desire for its implementation by governments. Like in Ghana, I totally agree with you that there is no link between the Entrepreneurship policy and Youth policy. Personally and practically, there is a very natural dichotomy between the policy itself, and its implementation. --Kafuiaheto 17:32, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
