Cape Town - Millennials see
social and economic inequality as the greatest challenge both in their home
cities and the world at large, according to the World Economic Forum's Global
Shapers Annual Survey results released on Sunday.
The survey captured responses
from over 1 000 young people aged between 20 and 30 in 125 countries and 285
cities, making it one of the most geographically diverse surveys of
millennials.
The respondents are all
members of the WEF’s Global Shapers community, a network of over 450 city-based
hubs of young, civically engaged leaders.
Beyond inequality, the survey
finds that youth unemployment and government transparency are the second and
third most important issues that need to be addressed in cities. At the global
level, climate change and education are the second and third priorities.
In South Africa, unemployment
is the single most important factor contributing to income inequality,
according to the latest UN Development Programme report.
Levels of unemployment have
remained above 20% for the last 25 years. According to Statistics SA's recent
data South Africa's unemployment rate declined to 25% in the second quarter of
2015, from a ten-year high of 26.40% in the first quarter of 2015.
Although the government has
expressed its commitment in dealing with the challenge of unemployment, Finance
Minister Nhlanhla Nene revised South Africa's expected economic growth rate for
this year downward to 1.5% from the 2.0% mentioned in the main budget in
February.
The SA economy is expected to
grow by 1.7% in 2016 and 2.6% in 2017.
Reallocate spending
Economists said there can
hardly be job creation in a slow growth economic environment and suggested
National Treasury reallocate spending to solve employment and growth issues.
Nomura emerging markets
economist Peter Attard Montalto, who believes increased spending on education
could help solve future employment and growth issues and boost potential growth
said the National Treasury finds itself in a difficult spot, with the fiscal
space so tight.
Referring to the student
#feesmustfall protests that rocked the country last week, Montalto said
arguably a much larger proportion of Department of Higher Education and
Training budget could go to universities.
"But the department it is
also responsible for trying to increase much needed vocational training and
apprenticeships, which arguably are needed by a large segment of the
population, the unemployed and potentially future unemployed youth.
"This is, however, a classic
example of where current expenditure (including wages) within the public
(government) sector needs to be constrained with greater urgency in order to
make room for important expenditure on education," he said.
Montalto cited transfers to
universities are set to be R83.5bn over the current and coming two fiscal
years, which
compares with R63.9bn
additional expenditure needed for the increased public sector wage bill in
Nene's medium term budget.
"The Treasury could have
dug deep with savings (as it has) in order to increase the transfers to
universities by 50% instead of having to do it to fund public sector wage
growth well above inflation and productivity increases and spend the rest on
maintaining consolidation."
Channeling frustrations
Political analyst Daniel Silke
told Fin24 on Sunday South African millennials increasing are frustrated with a
lack of political leadership from establishment political parties like the ANC.
And last week's student protests against fee increases proved that.
"Given high unemployment
(and critical levels among youth unemployment), this group is increasingly
critical of government. However, their populist protests will need to be
channeled back into the formal political arena especially with a view to local
government elections next year.
"That's the challenge for
all parties - especially the Opposition - to harness their frustrations
electorally. The danger in this country is that younger people withdraw from
formal politics due to their frustrations and lack of confidence in existing
parties or leadership.
"Already, we see worrying
signs of a decline in voter participation and last weeks' actions don't help as
students seek out alternative parliamentary options for their
frustrations."
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