Dreams, needs & diversity: portraits of Ghana’s Youth

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Published on 03 September 2020

Four video’s showing ‘Portraits of Youth’ are developed for the African Policy Dialogue ‘The Way Forward for Sustainable Youth Employment in Ghana’ in September 2020. The profiles showcase the diversity of the youth in Ghana: their various backgrounds, expectations, dreams and needs. It’s essential to recognize that youth is not a homogenous group in order to develop tailor-made programs in line their needs.

As mentioned in the Ghana brief by Prof Baah-Boateng on youth employment, “The varied economic status of the youth underscores the often ignored, heterogeneous feature of Ghanaian youth, as a result, beckons for cohort-specific policies and solutions as opposed to one-size-fit all approach to addressing the issue of youth employment”. (p. 6)

The African Policy Dialogue is a collaboration between the Ghana Netherlands Business and Culture Council (GNBCC), the Department of Economics of the University of Ghana Legon, and Netherlands African Business Council (NABC) with support from INCLUDE Knowledge Platform.

Meet Salamatu

A young lady of 23 years old living in Kasoa, an urban area outside Accra – Ghana. She is currently working in the informal sector by selling earrings. She is making ends meet but what is she really dreaming of?

Meet Mavis

An ambitious and bright young professional. She is 30 years and living in Madina, a neighborhood in Accra – Ghana. Due to Covid, her job was unexpectedly terminated. She is an accountant by school but a teacher at heart. What is she looking for in her next job opportunity?

Meet Emmanuel

A 23 year old looking for his next job opportunity. He is currently living in Kasoa, an ubran area outside of Accra – Ghana. He is dreaming of a business but the circumstances are hard. Where should he start?

Meet Theodore

He is 26 year old and the Manager of Farmhub. Crafting a career out of agriculture was a bit off the beaten track for him. Why did he choose this career path? Theodore sees a lot of opportunities in agriculture in Ghana and Farmhub tries to take the youth along in their growth.

The African Policy Dialogues are networks of policy actors that aim to encourage the use of existing and new knowledge in policy making in Africa. The dialogues, which started in 2016, identify priority policy issues in a sector where evidence is lacking, generate evidence and use the evidence to inform the drafting and implementation of policies and programmes. They are initiated by INCLUDE’s platform members, hosted by the platform members’ organizations and implemented in collaboration with national level stakeholders.