Speaker

Ms Lindokuhle Msele
Youth Capital Influencer
Youth Capital

Theme4G (RT): A unified strategy for addressing youth transitions into sustainable livelihoods as paramount for a successful recovery from the COVID-19 pandcemic

Biography

Lindokuhle Msele is a 28 year-old from King Williams Town in the Eastern Cape. She holds a Bachelor of Commerce Honours in Industrial Psychology from the University of South Africa. She is currently a Youth Capital Influencer, the Secretary of Eastern Cape Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Intersex (ECLGBTI) steering committee and working as a Monitoring and Coordinating Officer at Bumb’INGOMSO in East London. She was previously part of the United Nations Populations Fund’s Youth Advisory Panel (UNFPA YAP) from 2015 – 2018 representing youth and adolescents on various advocacy and policy platforms. Her passion has led to her exposure to many platforms and has represented youth in a number of conventions including the International AIDS Conference in Durban in June 2016, as well as the African Youth and Adolescents Network General Assembly in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in October 2017 to name a few. She is also a facilitator with knowledge on a variety of topics, a dedicated activist volunteering and leading the LGBTI agenda in the Eastern Cape as well as a youth mentor guiding and inspiring young women and ensuring that they realise their full potential.

Mrs Kristal Duncan-Williams
Project Lead
Youth Capital

A unified strategy for addressing youth transitions into sustainable livelihoods is paramount for a successful recovery from the COVID19 pandemic.

Abstract Narrative

Background:
For many African youth, the chances of successfully transitioning into adulthood are severely constrained by societal development challenges.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was estimated that 87% of the global poor would be concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2030. Although these were pressing crises prior to COVID-19, they have been exacerbated by the pandemic.

Youth in South Africa are disproportionately affected by the country’s development challenges. Prior to the pandemic, more than 7 million youth (18-35 years old) lived in income poverty; while 8.8 million youth (15-34 years old) were not in employment, education, or training.

They have also been disproportionately impacted by the country’s lockdown, which has resulted in disrupted education and training, job and income losses, reduced employment prospects, and greater obstacles in the search for work.

Purpose of Roundtable:
This roundtable session would spotlight critical policy issues for supporting youth transitions.

Method and Key Discussion Topics:
Youth Capital is a youth-led campaign that brings together research and young people’s lived experiences to drive a holistic agenda to tackle youth unemployment in South Africa; and would be the convenor of this roundtable session.

Youth Capital’s research and engagement with young people has resulted in the formulation of a policy-oriented Action Plan that is a blueprint for a coherent and coordinated multi-sector approach to addressing youth unemployment.

Drawing on the South African context, and using this Action Plan as the framework, this roundtable session would present:

• Critical policy issues regarding youth transitions; and

• Current innovative interventions addressing some of these policy issues.

• Offer a framework for multi-sector, coordinated approaches, that a diverse range of stakeholders, working in youth development, can locate themselves in and use as an aid in their work.

The theme for this roundtable session would be why it is important that countries in Africa ensure that youth feature centrally in their post-pandemic recovery plans, and what policy choices would support young people’s transitions from education to the labour market and sustainable livelihoods. The aforementioned Action Plan covers common challenges faced by many African youth. These include a lack of holistic support whilst in formal education, information asymmetries in the search for work, and a lack of recognition of informal work experience.

Speakers:

• Kristal Duncan-Williams (Project Lead at Youth Capital): facilitate the discussion, and explain the Action Plan.

• Ariane De Lannoy (Associate Professor/Chief Researcher at SALDRU, UCT): insights on evidence-based interventions that support youth transitions.

• Tessa Dooms (Director at Jasoro Consulting): how youth can meaningfully participate in and contribute to the formulation and implementation of youth development-focused policies.

• Salim Seif Kombo (Associate at the Busara Center for Behavioural Economics): how development and financial inclusion of youth must be central to a post-COVID19 recovery plan.

• Lindokuhle Msele (Coordinating and Monitoring Officer at Bumb’Ingomso): the lived experience of being a youth in South Africa, and innovations that could help youth transition to sustainable livelihoods.

Biography

Kristal has over ten years of research experience across the fields of molecular biology, public health, and youth employment. She has an undergraduate degree in Molecular and Cell Biology and a Masters in Public Health in Health Economics.

She is currently the Project Lead for Youth Capital – an advocacy and mobilisation campaign focused on ensuring that young people in South African have the skills and opportunity to get their first decent job.

Kristal is passionate about unlocking the potential of young people in South Africa, and believes that quality education, healthcare, and employment are the critical building blocks for a thriving society.

Ms Tessa Dooms
Director
Jasoro Consulting

A unified strategy for addressing youth transitions into sustainable livelihoods as paramount for a successful recovery from the COVID-19 pandcemic

Biography

Tessa Dooms is the Director of Jasoro Consulting, a newly established Development Consultancy that provides organisations with services on policy, programming and organisational strategies toward the development of Africa. Jasoro provides policy analysis, programme development, facilitation and training, and development communications services across sectors nationally and internationally. Tessa has 15 years experience as a development worker, trainer and researcher with expertise in governance, youth development and innovation. She has worked as a consultant for the African Union in over 10 African countries, the United Nations Fund for Populationa and the National Democractic Institute. In 2015 Tessa was appointed to the National Planning Commission to advise the President on the implementation of the National Development Plan of South Africa. She has successfully led, a policy think tank called Youth Lab and has lecturer at three South African Universities. She is also on the board of the Kagiso Trust. Tessa holds a Masters in Sociology from the University of the Witwatersrand

Mr Salim Kombo
Associate
Busara Center For Behavioral Economics

A unified strategy for addressing youth transitions into sustainable livelihoods as paramount for a successful recovery from the COVID-19 pandcemic

Biography

Salim has over 7 years’ experience as a development consultant. He is an Associate at the Busara Center for Behavioural Economics, a research and advisory firm dedicated to applying and advancing Behavioural Science towards poverty alleviation in the Global South. Salim’s expertise is in the areas of research and capacity building in several sectors including youth development, civic engagement, health and financial inclusion. Has previously worked at the African Union Commission (AUC)’s Youth Division, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) as a consultant and with the Japan Overseas Cooperative Association (JOCA). Salim holds a Masters of Arts Degree in International Relations from Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore.