Statement by National Youth Development Trust on the distribution of the youth fund so far.

The Ministry of Youth Indigenisation and Empowerment in partnership with Cabs and Old mutual have, over the past few stays, been releasing statements on the progress made thus far in distributing the Old Mutual Kurera/ Ukulonda Youth fund. Through the statement, the partners announced that so far $250 000. 00 out of a possible Ten million dollars has been distributed under the Youth empowerment fund.

Such progress by the ministry is very much commendable and is indicative of the step in the right direction towards promotion of youth entrepreneurship in Zimbabwe.

However, through various consultations with young people, NYDT has concluded that there are still a number of critical issues that need to be addressed to ensure equitable distribution, transparency, fairness and gender sensitivity in the distribution of the Youth Fund.

We call upon the Ministry to release the names of the individuals who have benefitted from the fund so far. The release of the names must show the provinces that have benefited thus far. This will allow members of the public to monitor the distribution strategy of the fund and guard against the marginalisation of some provinces in the distribution of the fund and ensure that indeed each province gets $1 million as planned.

We implore the Ministry to consider using other avenues of advertising and sharing information on the fund other than the conventional newspapers. Conventional advertising methods exclude other young people, especially those in rural areas, who do not have access to such forms of media. Instead of using conventional media the Ministry should consider partnering with CSOs, using local structures of information sharing, radio and deploying its youth officers to remote areas, among other strategies. It is the mandate of the ministry of youth, development, indigenisation and empowerment to promote public awareness on development and empowerment opportunities available to youths.

We strongly recommend that the Ministry should at least publish a call for applications six months before the deadline for applications as this would give young people adequate time to prepare their business proposals.

Above all, the ministry should consider revising the method used to administer and distribute the fund as well as the requirements as they are limiting particularly to the disadvantaged youths who should be the priority beneficiaries of the fund, with particular reference to the young women.