On 13 July, the Policy-Knowledge Community on Youth Employment in Ghana will hold its kick-off meeting ‘National Policy Dialogue on Youth Employment Challenge in Ghana: What do the policymakers and politicians have to say?’. This National Level Activity has been initiated by the African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET) and will take place in Accra.

Youth employment will be an important topic in the 2016 national elections in Ghana later this year. Youth are not only vulnerable to unemployment, those who are engaged in some form of economic activity are often at work in low-paid and vulnerable jobs.

The meeting will be a first dialogue with a cross-section of stakeholders including government, representatives of political parties, employers’ organizations, labour unions, students, youth organizations, researchers and academics. Partners in the dialogue are the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), International Labour Organization and World Bank. Topics on the agenda include skills and training; growth strategy and employment response; and agriculture and youth employment. A draft programme can be downloaded here and the background paper can be downloaded here. A second dialogue meeting is scheduled for September.