FFLI to hold Conference on unemployment

The Foundation for Future Leaders International (FFLI) would from Wednesday 25th to Thursday 26th July organize a conference of experts and various stakeholders to discuss ways of solving the unemployment situation among the youth in the country.

The two-day conference would be on the theme “Youth employment- Discussing the implementation strategies to address youth unemployment in West Africa”.

At a Press Briefing on Tuesday in Accra, Mr. Joseph Atta-Mensah, Director, Strategic Planning and Programme Management, said the conference would brainstorm to find out strategies needed to help solve the various forms of unemployment among the youth.

He said the youth were the future leaders of the country and it was important for them to be empowered adding that for development strategies of the country, the youth need to be targeted.

“Changes that occur in countries and all over the world were lead by the youth and therefore the powers of the youth should never be under-estimated”, he said.

He said unemployment remains a major challenge that has plagued young people in the West African Sub-region and in spite of several interventions undertaken to address the situation it still persists and seems exacerbated in other countries.

Mr. Atta-Mensah said Ghana alone as a country could not solve the problem of unemployment but need support from the sub-region, saying it was a critical situation and should not be left alone to Ghana to tackle.

He assured that the members of the sub-region would address and find ways to support all other member states to tackle the problem of unemployment.

Mr. James Jonah, Senior Fellow, Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies, said the economy has changed and therefore education of the youth must be based on the relevant economy.

He said Africa has the opportunity to learn from what was happening in the industrialized world, to tackle the massive unemployment on the continent, adding that the private sector need to partner government in ensuring that the problem was solved.**