Youth: Lessons from the East

accommodative and cautious enough to the specific needs of young business people.
Well that has not been the case. Government has recently been flexing its muscles on to the private sector challenging them to work towards setting up youth empowerment funds that are specifically tailor made for supporting youth entrepreneurship, but the response I must say has not been the desirable one.
Multiple criticisms have since been thrown at the Government for setting up empowerment polices, citing the liquidity crunch and the global meltdown as unfavourable conditions, alluding to the facts that “no country certainly not a small, open, low-income economy as ours in relation to the global economy is a master of its own fate”.
When we evaluate the recommendations of these critics, we look harder, dig deeper and still find that, the same old empowerment policies that our Government is advocating for on behalf of the youth have already been implemented in other countries.
Asian countries enforced these empowerment policies and apparently there are now the fastest growing economies of the world today. They have been successful in delivering recovery to their once suffering and debt stricken economies. Let take India as an example.
After the devastating tsunami of 2006 in India more than 10 000 lives were lost and millions of people displaced. The cost of damage to fisheries, housing, infrastructure, and agriculture was unbearable. A plan had to be put in place to bring back the country’s economy to its feet. The government and the private sector both had to play key roles.
In complementing government’s work, Nokia launched the tsunami reconstruction initiative, which was aimed at instigating development in affected regions in India through youth empowerment.
The initiative sought to promote long-term recovery efforts in tsunami-affected areas of India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. Its main objective was to specifically help young people rebuild their lives through providing access to training, jobs, apprenticeships, and business loans.
Youth often grow up with a fear of asserting themselves,” said Meenal Patole, head of the youth fund.
“They are not encouraged to try new things. As they mature, they become increasingly risk averse.” Such attitudes were exactly the opposite of what was needed following the tsunami, Patole explains. “We needed to mobilise and sensitise the community to the fact that youth can be trusted with money and succeed as entrepreneurs.” Negotiating loans with banks in the region and even locally often involves, upfront application fees, high interest rates, long waiting periods and collateral, a system that certainly needs to be revised when working with young business people.
Over three years, from 2006 more than 5 000 loans for different youth initiatives were funded, with a repayment rate of 93 percent. These loan funds helped to create employment opportunities for thousands of young people. From cashew processing to soda making, from sari weaving to handicraft production, the youth fund in India contributed to the creation of a range of local businesses.
The fund trustees recognised early that providing credit alone would not be sufficient to support businesses with the potential for growth. Instead, it developed a comprehensive set of support services, offering assistance with product development and business planning, linking young producers to markets, and pursuing diverse business models designed to increase the profitability and scale of local enterprises.
l Innocent Katsande is the Communications Officer for the Zimbabwe Youth Council.