Malawi youths demand 10 percent business quota in 2019-2020 national budget

Youth and Society (YAS), a local youthful organization has demanded the inclusion of 10 percent business quota and reserve a minimum of 10 percent of all its businesses for young entrepreneurs in the 2019-2020 national budget.

In an interview with Nyasa Times, YAS Executive Director Charles Kajoloweka said the demands are driven from the national youth agenda which aims at giving the young people room to benefit and fully take part in the developmental projects.

“We want this budget to be different from the past budgets which had no meaningful investment in youth. This has been largely due to lack of strategic engagements between government and youth actors,” Kajoloweka.

Ministry of finance wound up consultations on the 2019/20 budget last week, YAS is one of non-governmental organizations which has contributed to the exercise.

Kajoloweka said among several proposals, YAS is asking government to consider implementing a 10 percent youth business quota for youth entrepreneurs which must also be accompanied by business mentorship program.

“This will not only grow jobs but also spur domestic wealth creation for the country. Besides that, we are also engaging government on adequately resourcing the university loans board to increase access to high education particularly for the less privileged youth. No student should be allowed to drop from college because of lack of fees,” he said.

YAS together with other organizations is implementing a Youth Decide Campaign which was developed as an engagement gap between the youth and government.

They are also through the Youth Manifesto engaging government on various policy issues including budget processes in order to ensure meaningful investment towards youth