SEVERAL initiatives have been rolled out in Zimbabwe over the past five years to accord young people their rightful position as future leaders and drivers of economic growth.
One local institution that has done a credible job to improve young people’s access to capital is EmpowerBank, which the government established with a mandate to provide social and fi nancial solutions to the financially excluded demographics, particularly youths.
In July 2021, EmpowerBank unveiled a $120 million youth business start-up kit and working capital facility. Aptly called Youth Business Starter Packs (YBSP), the facility has assisted young entrepreneurs to quickly get started in business or to expand their operations Last year, EmpowerBank, through its microfinance arm, assisted over 160 youths with funding for tobacco production.
The bank, which is 100 percent-owned by the government, also disbursed loans to youths in small to medium-sized ventures encompassing the transport, distribution and retail sectors.
Chief director for Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development Services, Obert Jiri, recently underscored the importance of boosting the participation of young people in agriculture, which is the predominant productive sector of the Zimbabwean economy in terms of employment and linkages with manufacturing.
Jiri said thousands of youths across the country received training in agricultural innovation at Provincial Integrated Youth Development Centres under a programme set up by the government. “Youth training programmes have been initiated to develop youths’ skills in best practices in agriculture. The centres actually act as demonstration sites whereby young people in various provinces come and learn new skills and new ways of improving agricultural productivity,” said Jiri.
Some of the participants in the programme are using their newly-acquired skills to maximise on opportunities created by the Presidential Fisheries Scheme via commercial cage fish farming.
The training came after President Emmerson Mnangagwa last year directed each provincial minister of state to identify a 500-hectare piece of land that would be dedicated to youth projects as part of government’s policy to capacitate young Zimbabweans.
In a related initiative, youths have been allocated 7 700 cows under the Presidential Heifer Pass-On Scheme in line with the objectives of the National Development Strategy 1, which in part seeks to ensure that the number of young citizens who access empowerment programmes in all sectors of the economy increases to 200 000 by 2025 from 16 000 in 2020.