UN Youth Envoy, Ms. Jayathma Wickramanayake | Credit | UN

Invest more in projects that can empower South Sudanese youth to become productive citizens, the United Nations Youth Envoy has urged the government and its development partners.

Ninety percent of the youths do not have formal employment due to lack of a vibrant private sector opportunities in agriculture, tourism and natural resources, According to the 2019 South Sudan State of Adolescents and Youth Report launched on Tuesday.

The report also shows that 94 percent of young people join the labor force with less than a primary education.

The UN Youth Envoy, Ms. Jayathma Wickramanayake, says the unfavorable statistics on youth development should be an “eye opener” for the government and its development partners to genuinely understand challenges facing young people in South Sudan.

Ms. Jayathma argues that more investment in youth development projects can help solve challenges facing young people in the country.

“I think if we don’t put that special focus especially in a country like South Sudan where so much of the population is young people, then we are failing young people and when we fail young people we do not only fail young people, we fail the entire world,” She said during the launch of the report in Juba on Tuesday.

For his part, the Minister of Education, Deng Deng Hoc, who represented the Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports, said:

“We will exert more efforts to ensure more youth access employment especially paid employment as well as income generation activities.”

The event was organized by the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports together with UNESCO, UNFPA with support from the Government of Sweden.