Ministry Of Finance Engage Banks, Agencies On The YouStart Programme

In the recent past, the government of Ghana introduced a youth program called ‘YouStart’ to help youthful business visionaries to meet their desires.

As a component of Government’s endeavors to have a broad public commitment on the YouStart Program before its official launch, the YouStart Secretariat at the Ministry of Finance met with a cross section of Civil Society Organizations (CSO) in Accra.

The stakeholder meeting was in addition to other things to take the CSOs through the YouStart policy structure, its system, recipient bunches necessities and look for their help and ideas before the official launch of the program.

As indicated by Mr. Kofi Ofosu Nkansah, Chief Executive Officer of the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program (NEIP), over 100,000 youth search for jobs every year, a condition he portrayed as horrendous.

Mr Nkansah further expressed that, the greater part of the large enterprises and Multi-National Agencies today undeniably began as new companies and went through change over the long haul adding that, there could have been no finer option for the young people of the country than to begin little as new businesses under the YouStart program.

The plan of Government under the program, was to help all financially feasible developments from the youth and that, Government had laid out the right plans and situation under the Ghana CARES program headed by the Minister for Finance.

As per Mr. Ofosu Nkansah, more than $2 Billion was spent on food imports and that was one reason Government was quick to saddle the youth potential in regions that could give elective answer for the food imports and build the local economy.

The YouStart Secretariat had received novel ideas and proposals from youth and stakeholder interactions across the regions and emphasized that this information was required for the effective operation of the programme.

The YouStart programme is anticipated to create 1 million jobs, out of which 800,000 were expected to be direct jobs to the Ghanaian youth.

YouStart is a government program and that qualified candidates would be offered the chance and support to contribute their share to the development of the country.

According to a presentation, the young populace in Ghana ranging from 15 to 35 age is 11.7 million and the youth joblessness rate is 19.7%, assessed to be 1,140,009. The jobless females were 22.3% assessed to be 605,451 and jobless guys were also 17.4% assessed to be 534,558.

Number of workers who lost their jobs and were looking for another one were assessed to be 187,763.

Ghana’s YouStart Initiative Is Launching In April 2022

The presentation showed that, half of the Ghanaian Youth assessed to be 5,872,229 were classified as under employed, this he explained, as working below one’s capacity and that was why the YouStart was extremely essential to ensure that there was enough capacity building to get the best of the teeming youth.

Features, Benefits And Eligibility:

Applicants were supposed to have a verifiable digital address, have a Ghana Card and two weeks training to qualify for the programme.

The programme was aimed to target the youth between the ages of 18 and 40 years, and after due diligence of the applications, an amount of GHC 50,000 and GHC 100,000 with 4% interest rate payable within a period of three years would be given to individuals and groups as working capital.

Implementing agencies under the YouStart programme includes NEIP, KPMG, Legacy and Legacy. Representatives from the Ghana Association of Banks were also present at the meeting.