A professor of Political Science at the University of Ghana, Professor Joseph Atsu Ayee, has called for a separate creation of a ministry in charge of youth development.

He believes it will help address youth employment and issues affecting the youth.

According to Professor Ayee, such a ministry should be a parent body to the National Youth Authority (NPA) and all accompanying youth agencies, to address the concerns of the youth.

Professor Ayee noted that the current Ministry of Youth and Sport has undermined youth development because the policy direction has been focused on sports development and had relegated issues of the youth.

Sharing his perspective on the issue of youth unemployment, he called for a more holistic and comprehensive manner to address unemployment issues to create better opportunities for the youth.

Adding that, the nation needs to revisit the 2010 National Youth Policy and review the long and medium-term strategies of the youth.

“In that document, a youth has been defined as between 15 – 35 years. So it means the youth constitute about 36 – 40 per cent of Ghana’s population.

“It is quite a huge figure which demands a consensus from all stakeholders, including the political parties to plan for the way forward as a country,” he stated.

The Political Science lecturer believes that the government must turn attention to strengthening the private sector since it lacks resources to address all issues of youth unemployment.

This, he said could help the private sector secure jobs for the youth to reduce youth unemployment in the country.

‘‘That is why it is important for the nation to help in building a strong private sector with an enabling environment to enable it take care of these issues.

“It is, however, unfortunate that succeeding governments since independence have developed a phobia for the private sector, all because politicians always want to capitalise on the problems affecting the youth, especially youth unemployment, to solicit votes during elections.

Governments upon governments always say we are interested in developing the private sector but to no avail.

They rather set up uncoordinated agencies as an avenue for employment but it all ended up as temporary jobs for the youth,” he emphasised.

Many Labour Experts have called for a more proactive development plan to tackle unemployment in the country.

Meanwhile, the Finance Minister during the presentation of the 2020 Budget announced a GH¢1 billion new programme known as ‘YouthStart’ initiative to financially support young entrepreneurs in the country to develop commercially viable businesses and create jobs for the youth.

According to Ken Ofori-Atta, the initiative is expected to create 1 million jobs in the country.