FEATURES NEWS THE RISING NEPAL (DAILY)

Youth Self-Employment Programme
To Reduce Unemployment

By Uttam Maharjan

UNEMPLOYMENT is a nagging problem not only in Nepal but also elsewhere in the world. Even developed countries have not been able to get rid of it. Only the scales of the problems would vary. In developed countries, unemployment is on a low scale, while in developing countries it is on a large scale.

In Nepal, infrastructure development required for economic growth is not up to the mark. Investments made in productive sectors are not adequate. Further, results commensurate with investments hardly come out due to the poor implementation of the development projects.

Poverty and unemployment are interlinked phenomena. A low rate of employment is responsible for the high incidence of poverty in the country. The rate of employment in the country is estimated at 4.9 per cent, with semi-employment occupying as high as 47 per cent. Taking into account the population growth rate of 3.7 per cent, about 300,000 labourers are expected to enter the labour market every year.

As the investments in productive sectors are low, population growth is high and the private sector is not flourishing satisfactory, the problem of unemployment has further been compounded. Besides, the involvement of foreign labourers in the domestic labour market has deprived some Nepalese of jobs.

For employment generation, such sectors as hydropower, tourism and forestry ought to be developed. Similarly, investments in unproductive sectors should be diverted to more productive ones.

Skilled manpower is required for development activities but the production of such manpower has not kept up with the demand. Therefore, a shortage of skilled manpower has been acutely felt.

At the end of the Eighth Plan, labour forces were estimated at 11.67 million, out of which 81 per cent were engaged in agriculture; 5 per cent in industry, mining, electricity and construction; and 14 per cent in business, hotel, transport, commerce, finance, realty and social sectors.

Agriculture provides more employment opportunities than any other sector. But it cannot provide year round employment due to the seasonal factor. So those engaged in agriculture sector have to remain idle in the off season. Therefore, there is a need for making arrangements for promoting non-agricultural business like wickerwork, sericulture and apiculture.

Some youths have a tendency to go abroad to work there. Due to low-level skills, they often end up working as menial workers with very few facilities. What is more, they have to undergo physical torture even for venial faults or through no fault of theirs. There are cases galore where foreign job-seekers are defrauded by manpower supply agents or other brokers, marooning them in a foreign land.

It is obvious that people are willing to work abroad in the hope of earning more money. The other reason is that they are shy of working in their own country as the low-level workers. Lack of adequate job opportunities is also partially responsible for encouraging the quest for foreign employment.

Youths are considered a powerhouse for the development of a country in that they are endowed with activity, vigour and zeal that can be productively used in development activities. But for lack of opportunities, the energy of the youths often goes down the drain, which is a misfortune for a country.

For proper mobilisation of the youths in the country, the government has implemented the Youth Self-Employment Programme since the fiscal year 2056/2057. The goal of the programme are to identify and reach target groups: to employ youth skills in productive sectors: to utilise skills, education, capital and entrepreneurship in the rural areas: to make the youths self-dependent; and so on.

The practical aspect of the programme is to establish training centres for the unemployed youths and ground them in vocational training. Such training includes tailoring, mechanical work, metal fabrication, wickerwork, food-making and so on.

After completion of the training, the trained youths are provided with a collateral-free loan of Rs. 100,000 so that they can do work on their own. The positive side of the programme is that if they successfully run and gradually expand their business, they can employ more unemployed youths, also, thus mitigating the problem of unemployment to some extent.

The Ninth Plan has set a far-sighted goal of reducing unemployment to 3 per cent and semi-unemployment to 10 per cent in 20 years. For this, it has also developed the ‘one family one job’ concept.

Similarly, the current budget has put special emphasis on mitigating the unemployment problem by conducting employment and self-employment programmes. The goals set by the budget include restructuring and going ahead with the Youth Self-Employment Programme; conforming skill development programmes to the market demand; collecting and publishing information about employment exchange and the labour market; studying the labour markets at home and abroad, devising labour and skill development programmes; and so on.

However, the success of the programme depends largely on the joint efforts of the government, NGOs and private sector. The youths should also forgo the mentality against doing traditional work. Such a cheap mentality harboured by the youths might be partially responsible for the mounting problem of unemployment. As we can see, it is not easy to get a jot in the government or private sector. And it goes without saying that virtually every youths hankers after such a white-collar job.

During the Panchayat era too, some anti-unemployment campaigns were set in motion. The Educated Unemployed Special Loan Programme formulated with the objective of granting concessional loans to the educated unemployed youths continued for some years, only to come to a halt because no positive results could come out.

Likewise, the Cottage and Small-Scale Industry Programme was jointly run by the government. World Bank and UNDP. The aims of the programme were to optimally use local resources for development, substitute imports, promote exports and increase rural income. However, this programme could not be sustained and so was dropped in mid-stream.

So cautious steps should be taken not to allow the Youth-Self Employment Programme to fizzle out. And the government, NGOs, private sector and target groups themselves should join forces for the perpetuation of the programme.

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