KARACHI: The one single step the Sindh government needs to take to help unemployed youth is to make microfinance accessible to the underprivileged class, said speakers at a gathering held at a local hotel on Thursday.

Provision of interest-free loans on easy terms, they said, was vital to reduce poverty, frustration in the youth and create stability in society.

The provincial dialogue on Sindh Youth Policy (draft) 2012 was organised by the Civil Society Support Programme (CSSP), which also launched a review paper on the draft policy on the occasion.

There was concern among the attendees over the delay in approval of Sindh Youth Policy, whose draft has been pending with the government for two years. The Punjab government had not only passed a youth policy but had also allocated funds for its implementation, it was stated.

“It’s unfortunate that Pakistan’s ranking in the global Human Development Index (HDI) has gone down from 136 to 146. We need to think why Norway has always topped the HDI list since this ranking has begun in 1990,” said Karim Bux Siddiqui, secretary for the Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Human Resource and Development Board.

This was because the Norwegian government had a programme to develop its workforce in a way that was acceptable to both the country and the global job market, he said.

According to Mr Siddiqui, the government needed to plan the kind of workforce required in and outside the country. “We need to question whether we need more graduates and masters or a skilled workforce. Seventy per cent of the jobs in the HDI are related to skilled workforce but unfortunately we have attached so many social taboos with that,” he said.

A certified mason, he said, could earn up to $40 per hour abroad and currently there was a demand for 100,000 construction workers in Malaysia and the UAE.

The government, he said, needed to identify gaps in the wage structure, education and training and promote microfinance. At present, microfinance didn’t support disadvantaged youth as bank interest rate was too high and people with little resources were told to bring guarantees.

“We need friendly commerce policies that could help a penniless but skilled man to earn a livelihood. That has happened all over the world where governments aimed at reducing poverty,” he said, adding that his department had trained 2,000 people in driving before offering them vehicles.

Highlighting the gaps in the draft policy, Shahid Panhwar, representing the CSSP, said the policy must be shared with the relevant governments and NGOs so that a comprehensive and integrated policy could be finalised.

According to the review report, 2,765,789 citizens have gone abroad in search of employment over the last five years. Earlier, the Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis had reported that 5,873,539 Pakistanis had migrated from 1981 to 2012, of whom 41,498 professional and technical workers left in 2012 alone.

Sabiha Shaheen, representing Bargad, a youth development organisation, told the audience how a youth policy draft was developed in Sindh and added that the 2013 elections had delayed the policy’s approval, though the consultation process in the government was still going on.

“During the consultation process we found that Sindh was the only province where there was a strong rural-urban divide. Nationalist views are dominant in Hyderabad, Larkana, Khairpur and Mirpurkhas,” she said.

The key issues affecting the youth, according to her, included an acute lack of jobs and harnessing their potential.

Briefing the audience on the CSSP, Noor Mohammad Bajeer said the organisation had been operating across the country since 2005 and one of the focused areas was to educate, engage and empower youth for a democratic, just and peaceful society.

Later, the floor was opened for a question-answer session. Participants underlined the need to update curriculum that, they said, must include text aimed at promoting inter-faith harmony and peace.

They also called for development of rural areas at par with urban areas to discourage migration, merit-based appointments, establishment of youth affairs offices in all districts and revival of student unions that, they said, had been ignored in the youth policy draft.

Published in Dawn, January 30th, 2015

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