National Youth Commission: briefing

PRESENTED BY CEO MR L MBOYI

21 FEBRUARY 2003

A) Introduction

As per the request of the Committee the National Youth Commission seeks to do a briefing on the progress made in four critical areas, that is,

1. Implementation of the National Youth Service Programme
2. Progress on the Amendments to the National Youth Commission Act
3. The State of the Youth Report
4. National Youth Policy
5. Youth Month 2003 (to be dealt with separately)

It is the understanding of the National Youth Commission that this briefing is within the context of our ongoing work. Secondly the National Youth Commission has, on previous occasions, provided detailed briefings to the Joint Monitoring Committee on the details of its ongoing work.

The National Youth Commission was set up through the National Youth Commission Act, Act 19 of 1996. One of its critical mandates was to develop a National Youth Policy for the country. The NYC was further mandated to ensure co-ordination with regards to youth development programmes within and outside Government. Within Government, this has been achieved through a structure called the inter-departmental committee on Youth Affairs. The NYC is also expected to ensure facilitation and monitoring of Youth Development programmes.

Besides the National Youth Service (which will form the core of this report), and bearing in mind the fact that the NYC's mandate rests on co-ordination and facilitation not implementation. Indeed, there are numerous programmes the NYC has pioneered with the view of demonstrating ideas and concepts for full scale implementation by various agencies, including the following:

• Youth Information Services
• Youth Economic Participation
• Capacity Building
• Local Government
• Young Prisoners Programme

This is over and above the organisation's ongoing work on advocacy, communication and lobbying that characterises most of its work as per its mandate.

1. Implementation of the National Youth Service

The National Youth Development Policy Framework 2002 -2007 adopted by the Cabinet in December 2001, mandates the NYC to ensure implementation of a National Youth Service Programme for the country targeting the unemployed amongst others.

The case for a National Youth Service

A need for the establishment of a National Youth Service has been premised on the following:

• To inculcate a culture of service by supporting youth to participate constructively in nation building;
• To inculcate in young people an understanding of their role in the promotion of civic awareness and national reconstruction;
• To develop the skills, knowledge and ability of young people to enable them to make a transition to adulthood;
• To improve youth employability through opportunities for work experience, skills development and support to gain access to economic and further learning opportunities and;
• To harness the nations untapped human resources and provide a vehicle for enhancing the delivery of the country's development objectives especially to disadvantaged and underserved communities.

In 1998 the National Youth Commission set up a task team to formulate the policy framework for the National Youth Service. This process would culminate in the Green Paper for National Youth Service. A wide variety of stakeholders were consulted on the Green paper process both at National and Provincial levels. These consultations culminated in a National Consultative conference held at the beginning of 1999.

Subsequent to the establishment and finalisation of the Green Paper, the process continued to prepare a final policy paper i.e the Draft White Paper on Youth Service for adoption by Cabinet. The White paper sets out and outlines various parameters within which the National Youth Service should unfold. The White Paper was completed and submitted to the various Cabinet Clusters as part of the Cabinet process and is awaiting adoption.

Development of Business Plans

Besides the policy process, the National Youth Commission also embarked on a process of developing business plans that would drive the implementation process of the National Youth Service Programme. These business plans were in five different areas, that is:

• HIV/AIDS
• INFRASTRUCTURE
• EDUCATION
• HOUSING
• ENVIRONMENT

It is expected that they would form part of the initial roll out plan of the National Youth Service. These business plans envisage a partnership with relevant state agencies and departments.

Cost benefit analysis

The cost-benefit analysis that was commissioned concluded that National Youth Service is a commendable programme because:

• It will address and fulfil an important social and political need among young people if they are to become valuable members of society.
• It will add value by providing a coordinating mechanism for different youth programmes and in that sense represents a superior delivery mechanism.
• The programme does not impose additional costs on government other than those related to the institutional set-up for coordinating the services. It relies on existing delivery mechanisms while requiring modest additional administrative costs.

As life-skills development is a major component of the training that participants received, the need for accreditation was highlighted. The National Youth Commission with the support of the Department of Labour went on to establish and chair the Standard Generating Body (SGB) for Life-skills under the auspices of the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA).

Implementation of the Pilot Programmes
The National Youth Commission realized the importance of testing some of the National Youth Service models through implementing pilot programmes. Several pilot programmes have been run in partnership with various government departments

The first pilot programme was the partnership between the NYC, National Department of Public Works and IDT called the Youth for Environmental Access Project. This project was aimed at rehabilitating state buildings to be accessible to people with disabilities. The National Department of Public Works made available an amount of R50 million rands for this project, which was carried out in three different provinces, that is, Eastern Cape, Northern Province and KwaZulu Natal. A total number of 420 young people participated in this project. Young people with disabilities also participated in this project.

The Honourable Minister of Public Works, Stella Sigcawu launched these projects in Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape.

One of the main aims of this project was to provide young people with construction skills. A close out and graduation ceremony were held in Durban. A second phase of this project is also being conducted in KwaZulu Natal and the Northern Province

The second pilot was an environmental project in partnership with the departments of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Labour as well as Working for Water; it was conducted in the North West province and involved training young people in removing alien vegetations. A total of 100 young people were involved in this project.

The third pilot was also an environmental project; it was conducted in the Western Cape province in partnership with Working for Water. A total number of 200 young people were involved in this project which also entailed removing alien vegetations around the province. It is still continuing in places like Blouwberg Strand and Esteplaate.

The National Youth Commission went on to pilot in two areas, that is, infrastructure and environment. Strategic partnerships were formed with the Department of Public Works, Office on the Status of Disabled Persons, Federal Council on the one hand and the Department of Labour and Working for Water on the other. There were lessons learned in the process and key among these were the following:

• The aspect of service was diluted since the programme was essentially piggybacking on programmes of other Departments;
• The different management structures that were experimented with, had their own challenges;
• There was a lack of understanding of the key principles of youth development by key role-players in the process;
• Managing the expectations of the participants proved to be a challenge as well. Most young people were motivated to join the programme because they were unemployed as opposed to wanting to serve; and
• There were also behavioural problems that could have been anticipated and therefore managed better.

Critical Steps Ahead

• Finalisation of the NYS Policy Framework by Cabinet that will set the framework for National Youth Service.
• Drawing up of a clear implementation plan with relevant State Departments, whose details must be submitted to Cabinet as speedily as possible.
• Development of a clear funding strategy for National Youth Service
• Setting up of a UNIT with the responsibility of taking National Youth Service to scale.

The National Youth Commission started the process of compiling the state of the Youth report about two years ago with the assistance of various researches. This report focused on four key areas pertaining to youth, that is:

• Health
• Education
• Economic participation
• Political mobilization

This report gave a clearer picture and understanding of the status of young people in the current conjuncture. It informed the preparation and the finalization of the National Youth Policy Development Framework, most of the provisions that came out of the National Youth Development Policy Framework were informed by the State of the Youth Report.

This report is awaiting printing and publication, and will form the basis of discussions of the National Youth Parliament to take place during the Youth Month.

As per the mandate of the National Youth Commission, the National Youth Policy process was completed in 1997. It was subsequently revised in the year 2000 and finalized as the National Youth Development Policy Framework (2002-2007). This framework was adopted by the cabinet at the end of November 2001 and launched by the Honourabe Minister Essop Pahad on the 3^rd of December 2001.

The framework provides a paradigm within which youth development must take place through out government and beyond. Government departments are already utilizing the framework as a basis for conceptualizing and implementing youth development programmes.

Critical Challenge

The critical challenge is for the National Youth Policy Development Framework to inform the agenda of the Government Department's work on Youth Development as well as putting in place monitoring and impact assessment tools to ensure that the policy impacts positively to the lives of youth.

4. Progress on the Amendment of the National Youth Commission Act

As previously stated, the National Youth Commission was set up through the National Youth Act, Act 19 of 1996. Among other things, structurally the Act allowed for 19 Commissioners to be appointed by the President, 5 full time, 5 part time and 9 from the different Provinces.

The National Youth Commission Act was subsequently amended in 2000 to reduce the number to 5 full time Commissioners therefore eliminating the component of part time commissioners and provincial representatives. This was informed by the need to restructure this organ of youth development and its Provincial counterparts into a much more aligned unitary organ of youth development. The amendment was also expected to deal, to a large extent, with the standardizing the number of Commissioners in the different Provinces, as well as structured relations with local government.

Unfortunately the 2000 amendment only dealt with one component of the different proposals submitted, and that is, the reduction of the number of Commissioners from nineteen (19) to five (5).

It is the expectation of the National Youth Commission that the Joint Monitoring Committee will still apply its mind to the issue of restructuring the National and Provincial Youth Commissions, such that this matter could also find expression in the legislative process.

Problem

The main problem is that the NYC and the PYCs are not uniform or aligned in their institutionalization across the country despite the constitutional intentions to create youth development as a national goal. This is by and large a result of the fact that the constitution gives powers to Provinces to initiate youth development, of which some Provinces went ahead to implement before the formation of the NYC. At the time of the formation of the NYC, these provincial youth development organs were already created. This also created challenges of incorporating these organs into the auspices of the NYC.

Moreover the local sphere of governance was not drawn into the broad NYC framework, resulting in a fragmented approach by the local governments on youth development issues without effective measures in line with the National Youth Policy.

Fundamentally linked to this restructuring process is the question of budgets and Human Resources attached to these structures

Clearly the gap between the institutional status quo and the envisaged new aligned NYC system covering all tiers of government requires legislative process.

The legislative process must clearly define and state the mandate of the National Youth Commission vis-à-vis the three tiers of governance, its powers vis-à-vis the role of national, provincial and local governments.

The legislative framework must in turn give further substance and consolidate the functions of the NYC as a system operating at all levels with clear budget and personnel issues being addressed, placing particular emphasis on the elimination of policy conflicts among the various levels of the NYC system.

We envisage the legislation process to clearly define the function, and refine the mandate of the NYC. The structural format of the NYC, as envisaged by the mandate should also be clearly defined.

In brief the legislative process should deal with the following issues

• A common approach for effective and efficient youth policy development and implementation efforts at all levels of governance.
• Provincial legislation should be amended to give effect to the NYC's mandate of creating an aligned structural organ in all Provinces and local authorities
• Stipulate the formation of Provincial Youth Commissions in all Provinces adhering to some standard format to enable uniform policy formulation and implementation consistent with National Youth Policy.
• Clearly stipulate the powers of all provincial youth commissions and link these powers with those of the NYC in line with the objective of creating a unitary one.
• Enable the NYC within reasonable but necessary basis to intervene and have final say on broad policy issues at provinces in line with pursuit of nation youth policy objectives.
• Provinces must not be allowed to pursue policies in inconsistent with national youth policy, except where such policy is particular to the province and is supplementary to the role, mandate and functions of the NYC.

In conclusion, the Commission does hope that the President's response to the State of the Nation Address will go a long way in addressing issues of youth development, esp. in the area of implementation of youth service. We would like to thank Honourable MP Nathi Mthethwa for his support during this debate.