Youth and unemployment

Gambia’s youthful population is about 60%. Their position should be very important to the development of our nation and their issues should be emphatically outlined in national policies.

It is obvious that majority of our young people are participating in irregular migration to Europe and other parts of the world due to the lack of employment opportunities in the country. Many Lives have been lost recently in these you g Peoples’ drive to reach the soil of the western world.

This should send a signal to the government, private sector players, and other partners to put more focus on trying to create more employment opportunities to keep the youths employed in the country as well as prevent future occurrence of life lost as the country have already mourned enough.

The Gambia should by now have specialised vocational training centres that can train young people on different employable  skills in order help them start up their own micro business which will bring income to them and their families.

Our young people need to be considered significantly in all spheres of development process  or else the country will retarded due to non participation of young people and may, in a greater extent cripple the development process of the nation. 

In majority of Gambian families, young people are the bread winners. Those mean there should always be opportunities created for them to be engaged in the economic activities. This could be created by either the private sector or central government.

Young people who are not meaningfully engage usually participate in activities that are ill to the society  and opposite to the needs and liking of the society.

This have the potential to promote criminal activities in the society, which can greatly   undermine the development process of our nation.

The Gambia, like any other country cannot be fully developed without its young people being engage in positive economic activities.

The government should engaged its development partners to discuss the issues which are significant to the needs and wants of the youth in the country and their participation in nation building is highly important.