Who are we?
The
National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) is a South African-based agency
established primarily to tackle challenges that the nation’s youth are
faced with. The NYDA was established by an Act of parliament, Act no 54
of 2008.
The agency derives its
mandate from legislative frameworks such as the NYDA Act (54 of 2008), the
National Youth Policy (2009-2014) and the draft Integrated Youth Development
Strategy as adopted by the Youth Convention of 2006.
The
institution was established to be a single, unitary structure,
established to address youth development issues at National, Provincial
and Local government level. The
existence of the NYDA should be located within the broad context of
South Africa’s development dynamics. Like many developing countries,
South Africa has a large population of youth, those between the ages
14-35 represent 42% of the total population.
Given
the youthful nature of the South African population, much of the
socio-economic challenges faced by the nation, including poverty, inequality
and joblessness, poor health are largely encountered by the youth. The gravity
of challenges South Africa is faced with, require multi-pronged efforts that simultaneously promote the development of sustainable livelihoods,
reduce poverty, inequality and prioritise the development of policies
which create an enabling environment for youth development.
The
NYDA plays a leading role in ensuring that all major stakeholders such as the government, private sector and civil society, prioritise youth
development and contribute towards identifying and implementing long-lasting
solutions that address youth development challenges. Furthermore,
the NYDA designs and implements programmes that are aimed at improving the lives of young people, as well as avail opportunities to youth. These programmes could be
clustered as follows:
- Individual (Micro) level: The NYDA provides direct services to youth in the form of
information provision, career guidance services, mentorship, skills
development and training, entrepreneurial development and support,
health awareness programmes and involvement in sport.
- Community (Meso) level: The NYDA encourages young people to be catalysts for change in their
communities through involvement in community development activities,
social cohesion initiatives, National Youth Service programmes and social dialogues.
- Provincial and National (Macro) level: Through its policy development, partnerships and research programmes,
the NYDA facilitates the participation of youth in developing key policy
inputs, which shape the socio-economic landscape of South Africa.
What do we do?
The NYDA activities could be summarised as follows:
a)
Lobby and advocate for integration and mainstreaming of youth
development in all spheres of government, private sector and civil
society,
b) Initiate, implement, facilitate and coordinate youth development programmes,
c)
Monitor and evaluate youth development interventions across-the-board
and, mobilise youth for active participation in civil society engagements.
NYDA'S New Focus
The National Youth Development
Agency has shifted its primary core business away from Enterprise
Finance towards Education and Skills Development. The fundamental change
in this area of development is the change from loan provision to grant
provision for young entrepreneurs.
The
NYDA no longer offers loan finance to young entrepreneurs; the agency provides financial support in the form of micro-finance grants to young entrepreneurs and youth cooperatives.
The
objective of the NYDA Grant Funding is to provide young entrepreneurs with an
opportunity to access both the financial and non-financial business
development support to establish their survivalist businesses.
The
programme focuses on youth entrepreneurs who are just coming into
existence and beginning to display signs of future potential but are not
yet fully developed. The Grant Funding starts from R1 000 to a maximum
of R200 000 for any individual or youth cooperative. For agriculture and technology-related projects, the maximum threshold is R250 000. The NYDA continues with efforts directed at
economic participation offering a range of products, programmes and services to
young entrepreneurs in need, albeit as a secondary focus.
The
new plan of the NYDA therefore focuses on tailor-made interventions
for job preparedness and placement, a focus on scholarship provision for youth who excel in schools, the scaling up of the YouthBuild Programme
for out-of-school youth, the increase of second chance opportunities for
matriculants and the intensification of our highly successful career
guidance programme.
Key Performance Areas
KEY PERFORMANCE AREA 1: Economic Participation
The
main goal of the Economic Participation focus is to enhance the contribution of young people in the economy through targeted and integrated
programmes. Programmes implemented by the NYDA aim to facilitate and
provide employment opportunities for youth in order to improve the inclusion of young people in the economy, through increased job creation, entrepreneurship and business support, as well as skills development.
Implementation is at the following strategic objectives:
- To provide socio-economic empowerment interventions and support for young people in South Africa
- To provide increased universal access to young people
KEY PERFORMANCE AREA 2: Education and Skills Development
The
main goal of the Education and Skills Development programme is to
promote, facilitate and provide education and skills development
opportunities that enhance the socio-economic well-being of young people through facilitating education opportunities, community participation and service activities geared towards fostering patriotism.
The aim is to improve
access to quality education, facilitate and implement skills
development programmes, offer scholarships assistance and encourage young people to participate in social cohesion and nation building activities.
Implementation is at the following strategic objectives:
- To facilitate and implement skills programmes
- To facilitate and implement education opportunities in order to improve the quality education attainment for the youth
- To engage young people in service activities geared towards fostering patriotism, social cohesion and nation building.
KEY PERFORMANCE AREA 3: Research and Policy
The
main goal of this key peformance area is to create a body of knowledge
and best practice in the youth development sectors and to inform and
influence policy development planning and implementation. The
fundamental aim of this area is to ensure that knowledge that inform and
drive youth development is developed based on facts that are relevant
to the developmental needs of the South African youth, as well as giving
South Africa a competitive edge.
Implementation is at the following strategic objectives:
- To create and produce information and knowledge for better development planning and decision making
- To lobby key stakeholders to support and implement youth development programmes
- To mobilise and leverage financial resources from key stakeholders.