Creating employment opportunities for the youth key to government – Festus Kwofie

The government is determined to go extra mile to support the youth with the requisite knowledge and skills needed to start and operate their own businesses.

Festus Awuah Kwofie, Deputy Minister for Employment and Labour Relations said this was the only way to make the youth create wealth for themselves and make their lives meaningful to the nation.

He was speaking at the opening of a two-day career and migration fair in Kumasi.

It was jointly organized by the government, the European Union (EU) and the German Cooperation for International Development (GIZ), to assist young Ghanaians to identify various employable and entrepreneurial skills and engender their interest towards enterprise creation.

Mr Kwofie said the youth who were in the majority, needed both technical and financial resources to help them identify and create employment opportunities for themselves.

The government would therefore go at length to help the youth develop the right skills and expertise that would equip them adequately to start and operate their own businesses.

He urged young people to take advantage of the government’s new educational policies which were geared towards technical and vocational education, to acquire technical and vocational skills to make them employable.

Mr. Andreas Berding, Head, Ghanaian European Centre for Jobs, Migration and Development, said, 11,000 start-ups support kits would be provided for young entrepreneurs across the country.

Additionally, some of the youth would be connected to about 60 organizations both locally and in Europe to grow and sustain their business operations, he said.

He said the goal was to provide the platform to tackle the growing youth unemployment, which had become the driving force behind the perilous journeys many of them have been making through the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean Sea to Europe in search of better lives.

Mr. Anders Djur Feldt, Program Officer of the EU, affirmed the strong collaboration with Ghana on migration, with the goal of providing opportunities for Ghanaian youth to study in Europe.