As South Africa commemorates 50th anniversary of the Soweto Uprising, scores of young South Africans marched through the streets of Soweto in a symbolic June 1976 march.
For far too long, South Africa has treated youth unemployment as a statistic. At Black Business League NPC, we believe it is a national emergency.
In 2006, while serving as the Chief Executive Officer of a mining engineering company, I visited the Copperbelt region of Zambia, one of Africa's most important mining centres.
What struck me most was not the mines themselves, but the noticeable absence of a generation of working-age adults. There appeared to be a significant gap between older and younger generations in many communities and workplaces.
When I enquired about this observation, I was told by local stakeholders that the HIV/AIDS epidemic had devastated communities across the region over many years, removing large numbers of people from the workforce and leaving profound social and economic consequences.
