Monday, 9th March, 2026
Hon Solomon Kuyon
Krachi-Nchumuru
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to make a Statement on the importance of the urgent need for a National Youth Development Fund.
Mr Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity to make this important Statement on the Floor of this august House. I rise today not to speak of problems, but of potential. I rise to speak of our nation's greatest and most abundant resource, the energy, the ambition, and the boundless imagination of the Ghanaian youth. From the fishing communities along the Vota Lake, my constituency of Krachi-Nchumuru and to the bustling tech hubs of Accra, there is a generation of young people who are not waiting for the future. They are ready to build it themselves. But readiness is not enough, ambition must be met with opportunity.
A dream, no matter how brilliant, cannot take flight without the wing of capital beneath its wings. The reality in Krachi-Nchumuru as it is in countless constituencies across our nation, is that we have a generation of talent that is being held back by a single formidable barrier: the lack of accessible, patient and empowering finance. We have young graduates with innovative agribusiness ideas who cannot afford their first piece of land. We have brilliant young women who have mastered a trade but cannot afford the tools to start their own workshop. We have tech-savvy youth with worldchanging ideas who have no path to seed funding. We have, in essence, a national engine of innovation that is idling, waiting for the full world to ignite it.
Mr Speaker, this is not a critique of any single government or policy. It is a recognition of a structural gap in our national development architecture. For too long, our approach to youth empowerment has been a patchwork of short-term programmes and temporary interventions. While well-intentioned, these initiatives often lack the skill, the sustainability, and the long-term vision required to address a challenge of this magnitude. They provide temporary relief, but they do not build permanent pathways to prosperity.
The time has come for a bolder, more permanent vision. That is why I stand here today to propose the establishment of a National Youth Development Fund. This will not be just another government programme subject to the shifting priorities of annual budgets. I envision a dedicated, professionally managed and politically independent national endowment established by an Act of this Parliament. A Fund that is insulated from the vagaries of political cycles with a governance structure that commands the confidence of the private sector, our development partners and most importantly, the young people it is designed to serve.
This Fund must operate not as a handout but as a strategic long-term investment in the future economic and social architecture of Ghana. The mission of this Fund will be clear and focused to provide the critical missing link between youthful ambition and economic reality. It will be built on three core pillars, each designed to address a specific stage of the youth economic journey. Pillar one, seed capital for youth start-ups. This is the fundamental, this is the foundational pillar. It will provide macro grants and low-interest, concessionary loans to young entrepreneurs aged 18 to 35, enabling them to launch their first business ventures.
This is for the young woman in Chinderi who needs a new oven for her bakery. The young man in Kete-Krachi who needs to buy his own fishing nets, or the graduates in Accra who need to purchase a laptop to start a graphic design business. This pillar is about democratising the opportunity to try to innovate and to take that first crucial step towards self-reliance. Pillar two, scale up financing for growth. The second pillar is about identifying and nurturing success.
The Fund will provide a second tier of financing, venture capital and growth loans for promising youth-led small and medium-sized enterprises that have demonstrated viability and have the potential to scale. The goal here is not just to create self-employment but to create employees. We must invest in the young entrepreneurs who can grow their businesses from two employees to 10, from 10 to 50, creating a powerful multiplier effect on job creation across the country. Pillar three, skills and innovation grants. The third pillar recognises that capital alone is not enough.
The Fund will provide dedicated grants to support modern apprenticeships, market-relevant vocational training and the establishment of innovation and technology hubs in every region of Ghana. This ensures that the skills we are teaching our youth are directly linked to the demands of the 21st century economy. It will support the master craftsmen who are passing on their knowledge and fund the coworking spaces where the next generation of Ghanaian tech innovators can collaborate and create tech innovations and collaborate and create.
Mr Speaker, this is not a partisan issue. The challenge of youth unemployment does not wear the colours of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) or the New Patriotic Party (NPP). It is a national challenge that demands a national consensus. The aspirations of a young person in my constituency are no different from the aspirations of a young person in any other constituency.
I therefore call on the leadership of this House to form a bipartisan working group, drawing Members from both Sides of the aisle to begin the urgent work of drafting the enabling legislation that will bring this Fund to life. Let us work together to design a sustainable funding mechanism. Let us exploit, for instance, a small dedicated levy on the profits of our extractive or telecommunications sectors, industries that benefit immensely from our national resources and our national markets.
Let us create a framework that attracts contributions from our international development partners and encourages corporate social responsibility investment from the private sector. Let us back this with a dedicated multi-year budgetary allocation from the state to build an endowment that will save the generation of Ghanaians yet to come.
Mr Speaker, let me conclude by speaking directly to the young people of Krachi Nchumuru and indeed all of Ghana. We see your potential. We hear your aspirations, and we understand that your success is inextricably linked to the success of our nation. You are not the leaders of tomorrow. You are the leaders of today, waiting for the tools to build a better Ghana.
Investing in you is the single greatest economic decision we can make. It is how we transform our demographic dividend from a potential risk into a historic opportunity. It is how we build a more inclusive, prosperous and resilient nation from the ground up. Let this Ninth Parliament be remembered not for its division, but for its unity of purpose on this critical issue. Let us be remembered as the generation of leaders who did not just talk about the future but took the bold, decisive and historic step to fund it. I thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity.
Hon Dominic Bingab Aduna Nitiwul
Bimbilla
Mr Speaker, I want to support the maker of the Statement. It is a very good call. The National Youth Development Fund concept is not new.
In fact, in the Eastern African countries, it is very widespread. There is Namibia and many other countries that have that fund. In those countries, the fund primarily fills a certain gap. Because when a young person completes school, the difficulty of having collateral to be able to get a loan is very high. So, they use this fund to provide collateral-free loans for the young people and also virtually interest-free loans because the interest is per annum between two to four per cent. If we can do this for the young people of this country, I am quite sure that a lot of them with very good entrepreneurial ideas will succeed.
Mr Speaker, I want to support him and say that we should target the young people, not allow the fund to degenerate or the fund to be like the Microfinance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC) fund or all these kind of funds that people believe that they have become political funds, where we bring the fund and we are only looking at our party members and constituency members; no. It should be a fund that should support the young people of Ghana.
With all the loose money around, we can pull it together and tie it to the Consolidated Development Bank, or the Agricultural Development Bank, which would continuously be funding this and the Government should support them. Like I said, if we target certain core areas like agriculture, Information Communication Technology (ICT), manufacturing, creative industry and tourism, we can get the youth to focus on these areas and I am quite sure that we will succeed.
Mr Speaker, how can we explain to people that we are importing sugar to the tune of over GH₵2 billion? We are importing rice to the tune of over GH₵2 billion? How? Why should we be doing that? We should change it, because we have very fertile lands. If you have the opportunity to fly across Ghana, especially in the southern sector, what we call the forest belt, Mr Speaker, you will be amazed by the quality of land that we have. So, we have the land and we should be able to get some of our young people to do that.
President Houphouët-Boigny, in those days, before a person took up a ministerial position, one of the guiding principles he had was whether they had a cocoa farm or a farm; otherwise, he would not make them a Minister. Even if one becomes a Minister, one must make sure that they have a big cocoa farm. The Government will help secure the land and will ensure that they do the farming to support. So, if we get our young people into agriculture, the green economy, manufacturing, ICT, the creative industry and the hospitality industry, we will be creating entrepreneurs; otherwise, the biggest problem we are facing today is youth unemployment. It is a time bomb. I have always said that countries that fail to tackle youth unemployment are just waiting for the young people to explode one day and we should not be waiting for that to happen.
Mr Speaker, it is a national security risk and we must find a way to do that. We can only do that when we behave like what the Americans did. In America, for example, the Americans started putting in the minds of the young people something they call the American dream, where they become employers. So, every young American man or young woman wants to become the employer and not the employee. So, they give their time and their energy for about two to three years and all they are thinking of is what they can do to also become the employer, because at the end of the day, if one is just an employee, they are just working for somebody to make the resources and to make the money off them.
They are using other people’s time, energy, brains, and everything to make the money. So, they think that, if, for example, a person becomes a farm manager and can employ two or three people, they become the employer. If a person becomes a carpenter in that place and they are producing furniture that Parliament or Ghanaians can buy, or that can be exported, then they become the employer. If a person is even doing tailoring job, where they can employ six or seven people, then they become the employer. If a person is doing boat construction, where fishermen can buy their boat, then they become the employer. If a person has a young farm where they can employ labourers to work for them, then they become the employer. If a person has a “chop bar”, a kenkey bar, or a waakye joint, where they become the employer, they can employ other people.
So, Mr Speaker, I am clear in my mind that— Mr Speaker, thank you.
Hon Nana Asafo-Adjei Ayeh
Bosome Freho
Mr Speaker, I would also want to commend the Maker of the Statement, the Member of Parliament for Krachi-Nchumuru.
Mr Speaker, this is a very important Statement and it is important because of the category of people we are talking about. These are the most vulnerable people within society. It appears as though when all the political parties are making campaigns, our buffer, our stock or the point where we fall more for votes is the youth. It happens that it is because of the vulnerability of these youth that we use them for some of these things. Now, this Statement is diverting our mind to the critical state and nature of the fact that we find a lasting solution to funding and creating jobs and opportunities for them.
Mr Speaker, there are some youth developmental funds and projects. We have the Youth Employment Agency (YEA), the National Youth Authority, the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme and the Ghana Enterprise Agency. All these agencies, groups and institutions are youth-funded institutions.
Mr Speaker, we will notice that the National Youth Authority has a source of funding, which is the parliamentary allocations. We have about 5 per cent District Assemblies Common Fund that is earmarked for the National Youth Authority. At the YEA, we have a statutory allocation that goes to them and we have 80 per cent of Communication Service Tax that are earmarked for the YEA. We have 10 per cent of the District Assemblies Common Fund that is earmarked for YEA and then we have 5 per cent of the Ghana Education Trust Fund that is also earmarked for YEA.
Mr Speaker, when we look at all the funds that I mentioned, the YEA, the Youth Employment, the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme and all the programmes that I mentioned, they have a certain source of funding. For me, it is about how we are integrating all these sources of funding and directing them towards achieving a certain purpose we are looking at.
Mr Speaker, if we are not careful, we would have a fragmented youth development fund scattered across the country all over based on governmental decisions, policies and priorities, and we may not necessarily achieve what we want to achieve in the future.
Mr Speaker, the New Patriotic Party (NPP), will come and decide to develop another model to fund or create jobs for the youth and then set up a fund. The National Democratic Congress (NDC) will also come tomorrow and would also want to do a separate or different thing to also find a way to develop the youth or create jobs for the youth. What is important is how are we working and integrating all these things so that we have a certain central development fund and a dedicated, committed pool to support our youth and create opportunities for them?
If we are not careful and we do not do some of these things well and our youth come to lose hope in the system, that is when we will find a lot of brain drain. Young men and women are leaving the shores of Ghana to go somewhere to find jobs where they believe that there is a better and proper system that will provide for them or that will take care of them. If we are not careful, we will find people misusing and abusing the system that we have because it is very fragmented.
Mr Speaker, I commend the Maker of the Statement once again and I think that we must look at this as a House. If the Committee on Youth and Sports or the Committee on Employment, Labour Relations and Pensions would go much more into this and see if we can have a certain integrated pool or a certain joint dedicated fund, instead of fragmenting, separating and scattering all the funds across because of individual or party priorities, then we will be looking at a point where the country can be bold and be certain about a certain dedicated fund committed by successive governments to be used to develop the youth.
Mr Speaker, with these few words, I want to thank you for the opportunity.
Hon Frank Afriyie
Afadjato South
Mr Speaker, thank you so much.
Let me also proceed to add my voice to the speaker who had just ended to commend the maker of the Statement on bringing to the fore an issue as relevant as the establishment of a Youth Development Fund. The youth constitute the future of this nation and any attempt to get our governance structure right, we must not exclude them. Getting them involved will mean that we are answering the challenges of the future.
Mr Speaker, as is colloquially said, when these youth are idle, the devil finds a job for them. Data from the Ghana Statistical Service, Revised Edition, in 2024 puts youth unemployment at a staggering rate of 32 per cent. Indeed, as has earlier on been observed, this is like a time bomb. Matters of job, matters of livelihood and the rest must be taken seriously. Now is the time.
Fortunately for us, establishing a fund of this nature, we might not be reinventing the wheel anyway, as very practical and useful examples exist in other jurisdictions. Mr Speaker, the most important thing for us to note is that plethora of funds that are youth-based exist. Unfortunately, the crux of the issue here has to do with application or how we apply them. Often, partisanship takes the central stage in our consideration. The mode in which we dish out some of these funds, hard-earned funds of the ordinary citizen to party cronies, is at the heart of the reason we have not been able to find a very useful source of funding for youth entrepreneurship.
Mr Speaker, as the maker of the statement rightly said, the youth are gifted with talents, they have energy, they are mentally resourceful, and indeed they are prepared to take the challenge in order to secure their own future. Ours is to help them by ensuring that this House takes the bold decision of coming out with a fund that insulates itself from the partisanship, the needless partisan consideration that we have suffered in time past, regardless of regimes. But I think that the most important news for me has to do with the fact that we have a regime today that is extremely committed to matters of the youth.
Indeed, H.E. the President, in the course of his campaign, has outlined his roadmap for equipping the youth with entrepreneurship under the National Apprenticeship Programme. Indeed, we are rolling out equipment to enable and make this particular campaign promise a reality.
Mr Speaker, we have again identified that one of the difficulties that youth encounter, particularly for which reason they seek funding, is about land acquisition and agribusiness in general. Currently, the President has encouraged any youth, particularly youth in my constituency, Afadjato, where we go into cocoa production, that land acquisition, land preparation, seedlings, fertilizer, every equipment, every input and tool that will enable them to cultivate cocoa farms are ready and they will be supplied with it.
Mr Speaker, the President desires us to ensure that within the next four years, we are able to create about 200,000 hectares of cocoa farms. And this is what the youth must take advantage of. Indeed, under the Feed Ghana Programme, we are rolling out a lot of incentives and support systems for the youth. So, it is not just a matter of establishing the Fund alone, but it is also about the youth taking advantage of all the policies of the system as we have them currently. Mr Speaker, when we are able to do this—
Hon Eric Edem Agbana
Ketu North
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to contribute to this Statement.
Let me commend the maker of the Statement for making this very important Statement on behalf of the youth of this country. Currently, more than 50 per cent of Ghana’s population are under the age of 35. What it means is that our population is largely youthdriven. For that matter, it is important for us as a country to adequately support and prepare and build the capacity of these young people.
Mr Speaker, successive governments have invested heavily in youth-led policies and programmes. But many of these programmes, we must admit, have not really impacted in empowering young people and solving the problem of unemployment because of how it is structured. From 1993 until today, every single government that we have had has dedicated some fund or has allocated money to support youth-led programmes.
We recently had Youth Employment and Entrepreneurship in Productive Sector (YESp), we have the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme (NEIP), and all of that. But, if we are to do a critical analysis, cost-benefit analysis, of all of these programmes, the question is, with all the money that we have invested in programmes like YESp, NEIP, how many young entrepreneurs today can we point to that have been very successful because of this support? It is simply because over the years, these support schemes are done in such a way that they are either episodic initiatives or they are done just to satisfy a certain political agenda momentarily.
Mr Speaker, when we go to countries like Kenya, Namibia, and so where youth funds really work, where many young entrepreneurs are supported and see the benefits of this support, the way it is structured, it is such a way that, Mr Speaker, we will see really the outcome, the impact of these programmes. This Statement is calling for Government to establish a national youth development fund. What this fund will do is that, Mr Speaker, it will provide a buffer where young entrepreneurs who are doing so well, but because maybe they do not have access to capital or loans from the banks and because they do not have the collateral that is needed to go to the commercial market, they can rely on this buffer in order to grow their business.
Mr Speaker, we have many young entrepreneurs today, the likes of Caveman, who is producing very beautiful watches that even our President is wearing his brand. We have the likes of Horseman shoes, and Giddins, also producing beautiful shoes. We have many other young entrepreneurs who are doing very well, but they need support. We have the likes of Bondaana, who is designing very beautiful shirts that even presidents of other countries are wearing, beyond even our President alone. As I speak, our Minister for Energy and Green Transition wears Bondaana. But, Mr Speaker, all these young entrepreneurs cannot boast of any support from the State to expand. I do not know what Mr Speaker is wearing, but it looks very Ghanaian.
Mr Speaker, thank you for wearing made in Ghana. Mr Speaker, back to the point. We need to, as a country, be very strategic about investing in young people, beyond setting up Funds where we are giving GH₵2,000, GH₵3,000, and GH₵5,000 to young entrepreneurs. The question is, all that we have doled since 1993, how many successful entrepreneurs have we produced from any of these funds? If it is possible, Mr Speaker, even if it means supporting a young entrepreneur with GH₵1 million, GH₵10 million, GH₵50 million, and we are sure that that entrepreneur will take over the entire market, create jobs, and in the end pay back the State, I think it is more sustainable.
Mr Speaker, I want to plead that this Statement be given the necessary attention. This is because today, across our constituencies, the greatest challenge that we are confronted with is unemployment. In conclusion, the support for and setting up a fund for young people should not be treated as a social intervention but as should be treated as a strategic investment that will solve even the problem of instability in the future. Mr Speaker, with these few words, I want to plead with you and the House to seriously consider pushing this agenda so that—
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