House Chairperson, hon members, guests in the gallery, let me greet you by saying, "Feel it; it is here! Bafana kaofela."
I would like to begin from the premise that comprehensive social transformation not only entails changing the material conditions of all our people, including the youth, for the better, but it is also ensuring that we build a nation on values of Ubuntu and true human solidarity.
It is the combination of these factors that give form and character to the national democratic society that we seek to build through the national democratic revolution. It is still our resolution to build a society based on the will of the people without regard for race, gender, belief, language, ethnicity or geographical location.
During this period of Youth Month, we must reaffirm our commitment to redressing poverty and inequality. The challenge faced by young people in the country is enormous. According to Statistics SA, the unemployment rate for the first quarter of 2010 increased by 0,9% to 25,2%. The youth unemployment rate is higher than the national average. The Ford Foundation has shown that approximately 2,8 million of people aged between 18 and 24 are unemployed.
We know that many young people do not complete high school, and those who do battle to get access to postmatric education. We need not forget the unemployment situation due to lack of skills. This shows that our country's socioeconomic problems are essentially centred on youth development.
Therefore, this calls for concerted actions aimed at youth development if, indeed, the future of our country is to be put on a sustainable and vibrant developmental trajectory. The historical role of the youth movement at the forefront of the liberation struggle has elevated the youth as a motive force for socioeconomic transformation.
Throughout different stages of our history, young people were at the forefront of the struggle against apartheid and socioeconomic exclusion. Issues of youth development were neither prioritised nor institutionalised during the pre-1994 period.
During that period, issues of youth development were left mainly to civil society and youth organisations, and never found expression within apartheid government structures or legislation policies and their programmes. The challenges of youth development over the last decade have resembled the extent to which the apartheid legacy sought to entrench itself in the socioeconomic and sociopolitical life of South Africans.
Resolving the challenges of youth development requires an approach anchored on integration, sustainability, responsiveness, and the demand and aspirations of the country's youth. The approach in this regard must not only be to confront current challenges of the national economy, but to confront the internal issues that hinder growth and development in a way that would meet the developmental needs of our people in general, and young people in particular.
We need to strengthen the National Youth Development Agency, NYDA, in its work to promote participation of young people in the economy through targeted and integrated programmes. We acknowledge that the NYDA is committed in promoting access to quality education and skills to both youth in school and out of school through work and life skills programmes.
This has made significant progress in promoting entrepreneurship among people, targeting youth aged between 18 and 35 in helping them start new businesses or growing existing ones. Social transformation must also mean that young people drive activities to build their social capital, networks and strengthen the relationship that bind people and communities together.
These activities will propel young people to reach their full personal goals and develop their full capacity. This will ensure that young people are aware of themselves, their rights and their responsibilities. The youth are undoubtedly the custodians of the future of South Africa. Therefore, they have a responsibility to ensure that they are comprehensively prepared for the future and leadership roles.
It is noticeable that, through social transformation, youth development has assumed centre stage in our country since democracy began. However, there is an acknowledgement that, despite such general commitment towards youth development, the absence of institutional and programmatic capacity to address youth development has meant that the historic backlogs created by apartheid persist.
The strategic objective of the ANC continues to be the liberation of the majority of our people: working people; the urban and rural poor; youth; women; and people with physical challenges. The ANC is committed to developing ways that seek to better the lives of all, especially the rural youth through the elimination of hunger; illiteracy; improving the quality and access to education; health services; and the creation of jobs.
In doing so, we must ensure that ANC's young cadres must support government by aligning ANC efforts with the objectives of government for our common benefit. In all these things, we must highlight the role played by the ANC youth cadres as agencies and drivers of transformation.
Our attack on poverty must seek to empower young people to take themselves out of poverty while creating adequate social security nets to protect the most vulnerable of our youth.
We must commend the Minister of Defence and Military Veterans, Lindiwe Sisulu, for her ground-breaking proposal that the country should create a national service where young people would gradually be absorbed into the training facilities and gain more skills in order to get opportunities for decent work. [Interjections.]