![[South Africa] DBSA and YES partner on job creation, innovation and community development](Images/2018/10/development bank of southern africa.jpg)
[South Africa] DBSA and YES partner on job creation, innovation and community development
A partnership to further youth employment in South Africa by bringing together innovation, infrastructure, 4IR thinking and a commitment to jobs for youth in township and peri-urban communities has been announced between the DBSA and YES.
This public-private partnership, a hallmark of YES (the Youth Employment Service) operations, promises to bear exciting and impactful outcomes with the two organisations finding common ground in their mandates and objectives for South Africa’s youth and achieving this through innovative, technology driven models and new thinking on local economic development.
The DBSA exists to transform the sub-continent and defines its purpose as “building Africa’s prosperity”. This resonates with the Youth Employment Service, which exists to push youth employability and youth jobs in South Africa. The DBSA has historically targeted infrastructure for development and YES is acutely aware that to create local jobs in marginalised high unemployment communities such as Bushbuckridge, particular infrastructure is very necessary.
The organisations will partner in the development of youth precincts modelled on the YES Hub concepts and value chain thinking supported by the World Bank, the Swiss Development Agency (SECO) and other best practice partners locally and globally. Elements of this model can be viewed at the Tembisa Kago Hub and soon to be launched Hubs in Bushbuckridge, Alexandra Township and townships in the Western Cape and Kwa-Zulu Natal.
YES has been crowding in private sector, enterprise development and grant funding to create opportunities for youth where they would not otherwise have existed which makes the collaboration sensible and powerful, each party is able to have significant growth in impact by pooling know-how, other partners, funding and resources.
The hubs aim to foster new centres of economic activity and growth within disadvantaged communities through developing economic value chains, market access to attract, create and retain economic value within the communities themselves.
Carey Jooste of the DBSA commented, “The DBSA found common ground seeing a method to create new pathways for youth to become skilled and productive economic participants by overlapping their infrastructural plans nationwide with the YES pattern of township, peri-urban and rural locations of the hubs.
Ismail-Saville, YES CEO explained: “In thinking about how we would reach the jobs numbers we need as a country, there was no ignoring the sore lack of accessible community level opportunities for skilling and employment for local youth. Cultural, geographic and educational distance to the centres of the economy are just too wide for young people without tertiary or even matric to traverse. The system simply does not cater to their needs, and they are the majority”.
DBSA Chief Executive Officer Patrick Dlamini adds, “The DBSA has a rich heritage of supporting economic and social development through investing in infrastructure. We are very proud to be able to join hands with the YES initiative to equip our country’s youth to become dynamic, productive participants in the economy.”
“Not only does this mean that the youth themselves are afforded the opportunity to gain access to new employment and skills development opportunities, but the South African economy benefits through overall economic growth and reduced fiscal strain,” he says.
