P20 Youth Parliament Discusses Increasing Youth Participation in Rural Economies

National Planning Commissioner Mr Ravi Naidoo led discussions at the P20 Youth Parliament on the topic: Enhancing Youth Participation: Outlining Proposed Interventions Towards Achieving an Integrated and Inclusive Rural Economy.

In efforts to integrate youth issues into the National Development Plan (NDP), the National Planning Commission (NPC) is launching a Youth Diagnostic Advisory to, among other things, map the youth development ecosystem to strengthen the national youth machinery. This will aid the NPC to consult with members of civil society to benchmark South Africa’s programmes working to upskill the youth and creating pathways to employment.

“The NPC will also have consultations with NPC NDP chapter leads to identify challenges and opportunities within the economy, social, and governance work streams,” Mr Naidoo said. This will enable “the use of evidence-based data to review the impact of youth unemployment, especially on despondent youth who are not in education or economic activity,” he explained.

The NPC also recognises a need to realign existing policy instruments, such as Medium-Term Development Plan, the National Youth Plan and the Integrated Youth Development Strategy to enable them to be effective in responding to youth unemployment. This reorientation is necessary to align national youth policy targets with the NDP indicators, to adequately track progress against the NDP’s youth targets, beyond 2030.

Given that the inclusion of youth in the economy remains a challenges, the NPC’s document Economic Path Ways for the Youth recommends the implementation of practical partnerships between the state and sector-focused private sector bodies to promote investment, exports and job creation in future-facing sectors, such as special economic zones related to ICT, global business services, renewable energy, tourism, mining, construction and agriculture. 

The NPC is exploring the idea of having flexible labour practices that recognise, stimulate and protect multiple task-based work, enabling youth to obtain multiple income streams beyond full-time jobs in both in South African and global markets. It also aims to make full use of the job pool associated with the digital economy by, among other things, “investing in digital skills, infrastructure and subsidising connectivity in, especially, township and rural communities for youth to access such opportunities online.”

The commission’s youth bias propositions are so broad in scope that they also encompass the current procurement regime. They advocate for the creation of short-term contract opportunities in public procurement in local communities for youth to take up in government information, technology and innovation services.

They also advocate for an Implementation and Monitoring Framework to assess progress on youth bias policy and legislative commitments made by the executive and passed by legislatures. Among other things, the intent is to establish a Youth Development Results Framework aligned to G20/NDP; develop an annual Youth Development Impact Report to be tabled in Parliament; create a Youth Participation Platform for monitoring delivery via mobile/web tools; and launch a public dashboard to track key metrics.

Abel Mputing
17 June 2025