Book

The Republic of South Africa is faced with an extremely problematic high rate of poverty, shortages of skills, and youth unemployment. This phenomenon is amongst blacks and colored Africans. This book, therefore, argues that job creation is a very important measure to address youth unemployment and related socio-economic problems; the majority of youth in South Africa have been classified as unskilled, uneducated and unemployable. The implementation of skills development programmes remains a huge problem. It has also been assumed that youth development programmes have been inaccurately interpreted. Youth development is an evolutionary development in which all young people are engaged in attempting to build skills and competencies to meet their social needs and for the development of the community. It is in this regard that I selected Belhar in the Western Cape as a setting to investigate the problematic mentioned above. Although the census report stated that people living in the area of Belhar have access to electricity, refuse removal, water and sanitation, up to now poverty and youth unemployment remain alarming in this community. The study indicates that youth development policy exists on paper at all levels of the South African government; however, implementation remains a significant challenge. This research is exploratory and employs qualitative methods of inquiry. Secondary data sources, including conference papers and the City of Cape Town’s budget documents, were used to gather information for analysis. The study further examines the current youth programme and the capacity of local government in the Belhar community. The data collected through interviews reveal that while informal youth programmes exist in Belhar, there is limited capacity and poor cooperation among councillors, youth leaders, and the metropolitan municipality. The study further found that since the youth programme began a few years ago under the leadership of a Belhar councillor, only two youth from the broader community secured employment after completing skills training. This indicates that the programme has largely failed to achieve its intended objectives.