Vice President Saulos Chilima has observed that access to youth loans remains a challenge, imploring responsible heads to revise access mechanisms for them to be friendly and benefit more people.
Chilima was speaking in Mzuzu Friday during commemorations marking International Youth Day at Mzuzu Stadium.
Apart from the issue of loans, Chilima called on development partners to start investing in the youth if the country is to achieve Malawi (MW) 2063 vision goals.
“Yes, we are mindful when we spoke to management of Neef [National Economic Empowerment Fund] here; they said recoveries are at 49 percent, which poses a risk.
“However, higher rates equal higher returns. If we deploy more advocates and ambassadors to tell others about the benefits of repaying the loans, we can sustain the fund,” he said.
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Chilima said he was personally impressed that the theme for this year’s International Youth Day commemorations speaks to the seventh pillar of the MW 2063, which talks of environmental sustainability.
The day was remembered under the theme ‘Green Skills for Youth: Towards A Sustainable World’.
“We must support the youth by offering them networking opportunities, fellowship programmes and training,” he said.
One of the representatives of the youth, Salome Kadadzi, asked the government to provide more resources for the completion of Mzuzu Youth Centre, which has been a political promise for decades.
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She also highlighted the need for the government to work on the issue of loans accessibility, saying a lot of youths in the country have the potential to contribute to national development but lack capital.
Donor Representative Ezizgeldi Hellenov, who is the United Nations Population Fund Deputy Representative, said they continue supporting the government to expand access to reproductive health services.
In his remarks, Youth Minister Uchizi Mkandawire said the youth remain key to national development efforts.
On youth loans, Mkandawire concurred with Chilima that access to loans has been a challenge due to, among other factors, collateral, an integral requirement for one to tap from the fund.
“We, as a ministry, are trying to figure out how we can help young people to make sure that they have access to the loans,” he said.
Mkandawire then called upon the youth in the region to take heart on calls to speed up the construction of Mzuzu Youth Centre.
The commemorations started on Friday with an allay of activities including training on green skills such as the manufacturing of fertiliser from waste.
