Skills development key to economic growth—Mussa

Minister of Labour, Youth and Manpower Development Henry Mussa says youth have to be equipped with skills in various entrepreneurial disciplines for the country to attain meaningful economic development.

Mussa said this last week in Thyolo when he opened a multipurpose youth centre, which was constructed by Active Youth Initiative for Social Enhancement (Ayise) with financial support from Glasgow through Unicef Malawi.

“Government realises that 80 percent of our population is youth and that they have to be provided for in as far as their social and economic development is concerned,” he said.

Mussa said the facility is a model that needs to be replicated in all the country’s 28 districts, urging Malawians of goodwill to support the initiative.

In his remarks, Ayise executive director Marcel Chisi said the facility is expected to provide opportunities to young people and also act as a platform for skills building.

“Thyolo is one of the districts in the country that has social economic indicators that are not positive for now. There are high levels of HIV and Aids cases, teenage pregnancies but also unemployment rate is high,” he said.

Chisi encouraged the youth to take advantage of the facilities at the centre to acquire entrepreneurship skills.

On his part, Willard Mwambo, a member of Thyolo Active Youth Organisation, a grouping mandated to ensure smooth running of the facility, said policies are already in place to ensure that the facility is well taken care of and that only deserving persons should benefit.

Meanwhile, 32 youth from areas surrounding the district have been trained in computer studies and about 100 are expected to be trained in various disciplines by the end of the year. n