Source: StarAfrica
The New Partnership for Africa Development (NEPAD) has launched the Youth Employment and Women in Agribusiness Programmes which seeks to support the economic growth and empowerment of the African women, APA can report.

The continental agency said within the agriculture, women and youth are responsible for up to 80 percent of food production.

It therefore intends to strengthen inclusive growth employment generation and sustainable livelihoods for African women producers and agribusiness entrepreneurship which should be the centre of agriculture and food security activities.

NEPAD's Programme Implementation and Coordination Director, Estherine Fotabong told APA that the youth employment programme is also to empower youth and drive their countries' economies in the next twenty years.

"The programme seeks to empower the youth to be able to develop their necessary skills and get in the agribusiness skills and we it will also link youth to the private sector and create opportunities for the to be part of development programs. Youth can go to the universities but they won't have enough experience to secure jobs," she said on the sidelines of Thursday evening's launch of the 11th Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme CAADP, Partnership Platform meeting which is underway in South Africa's commercial hub of Johannesburg.

The meeting is running under the theme "Walking the Talk: Delivering on Malabo Commitments on Agriculture for Women Empowerment and Development".

"We have long term programmers for women and youth until 2063 but we are not sure who will walk the talk we are doing, therefore women and youth capacity is key to guarantee continuity of all this, we also want to support these women and youth so that they can become vibrant driver of the continent's economy," Fotabong said.

The official added that agriculture continues to occupy a significant position on Africa's development landscape.

"We want functional markets and institutions for women in agribusiness while strengthening state and private sector-led interventions for agribusiness development women, i.e access and control to means of production and processing markets" Fotabong said.