Economist Calls for Centralized Approach to Tackle Ghana’s Rising Youth Unemployment.
A Senior lecturer, Department of Economics, University of Ghana, Dr Monica Lambon-Quayefio, a has raised concerns over Ghana’s high youth unemployment and underemployment rates.
She explained that Over the years, various governments have dedicated major resources to the design and implementation of policy interventions to address Ghana’s youth employment challenges but such policies were politically engineered and temporal.
Some of the such policies she mentioned included, the Youth Empowerment Agency’s (YEA), National Builders Corps, (NABCO), National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Progmme, (NEIP) and National Service Service Scheme.
“These interventions are spread across a broad spectrum from skills training and job placement matching, to seed capital and subsidies, however, there are no systematic documentation and evaluation of the impacts of the public initiatives
to understand and guide policy makers on what works best in reducing youth unemployment in Ghana,” she said.
Dr Lambon-Quayefio said this during a presentation of a research project; dubbed “Review of Youth Employment Policies and their Impact in Ghana ” in Accra yesterday.
According to her, data from the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) in 2021, suggested young people aged 15 to 35 account for 38.2 per cent of the population, up from 34.6 per cent in 2000.
However, she said nearly 20 per cent of this age group was unemployed, compared to the nationwide unemployment rate of 13.4 per cent.
“The situation is particularly dire for those aged 15 to 24, with an unemployment rate of 32.8 per cent. Gender also plays a role, as women face a higher unemployment rate (22.3 per cent) than men (17.4 per cent), Urban areas are worse off, with 20.4 per cent youth unemployment compared to 18.7 per cent in rural areas,” she said
Dr Lambon-Quayefio said lack of rigorous evaluations of policies to assess their effectiveness, adding that most programmes fail to incorporate exit strategies, leaving beneficiaries without long-term job security.
She said limited job opportunities in the formal sector and issues within the education system that do not adequately prepare youth for the workforce were some of the contributing factors to the high youth unemployment rates
“Weak adherence to programme designs during implementation, duplication of efforts due to political interference, and poor coordination among the agencies managing youth employment programmes have rendered these programmes inefficient,” she said
She expressed worry over financial supports which often hinder the implemention of youth employment programmes and the efforts to reduce youth unemployment.
Dr. Lambon-Quayefio’s research recommended government should centralized approach to the design and implementation of youth programmes to minimize duplication and improve coordination among the various youth-related agencies and ministries.
“Ongoing evaluations of these programmes are essential to ensure that resources are being used efficiently, by closely monitoring the outcomes, policymakers can identify what works and make necessary adjustments,” she said
BY AGNES OPOKU SARPONG
