The Department of Political and Administration Studies (PAS) at Chancellor College of the University of Malawi says agriculture remains key to addressing the rising challenge of youth unemployment in the country.
The revelations come at a time when thousands of youth continue to graduate from various universities every year but most remain outside the job market.
In a policy brief authored by Professor Blessings Chinsinga and Michael Chasukwa, PAS said though there have been efforts by the government to address chronic youth unemployment, the problem persists because most of the efforts have been divorced from the agricultural sector.
The policy brief says only the defunct Malawi Young Pioneers initiative stands out in terms of linking youth employment to the development of the agricultural sector.
According to the brief, the apparent neglect of the agricultural sector has been reinforced by the fact that both the initial and revised versions of the youth policy have not made an explicit linkage between having a vibrant agricultural sector and youth empowerment.
“Our politicians simply look at agriculture as a means of growing maize for purposes of ensuring food security for their political survival and not as a tool of transformative development through technological advancement through value chains and youth involvement,” reads the brief in part.
It says rebranding the image of agriculture to attract the youth could be critical in boosting the sector.
The brief says currently,the youth are demotivated to take part in agriculture as a serious means of livelihood because agriculture is associated with the elderly and school dropouts.
“The perception of the youth is that agriculture is self-invitation to poverty, as such, they are less eager to venture into it as their main occupation. Rebranding the agricultural sector will have to focus on issues with tremendous appeal to the youth like commercialisation, technology, industrialisation and value addition.
“Industrialisation, for example, has potential to create decent jobs for the youth because it can foster the development of other aspects of the value chain that are currently underdeveloped such as input supply, processing, storage, marketing and distribution,” reads the brief.
It further says promotion deliberate policies to remove structural and financial bottlenecks that prevent the youth from taking agriculture as a main job could also help propel youth employment.
“Some of the hindrances that need turnaround include: exclusion criteria in social and economic programmes such as Fisp, access to credit, access to land, access to agricultural inputs, access to extension services,” it reads.
It has further advocated for an improvement in policy and programme design for youth empowerment initiatives to accommodate subtle but important issues.
According to the brief, it is clear that policies or programmes directed at youth empowerment are driven by short-termism, motivated by the selfish desires of politicians to maintain themselves in power.
According to the Malawi Labour Force Survey of 2013, about 73 percent of youths aged between15-24 were employed.
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