During his State of the Nation Address in February 2020, President Nana Akufo-Addo stated that “we are creating conditions for young people to have hope again, and we are determined to do more”. (Source: https://www.pulse.com.gh/news/politics/full-text-of-nana-addos-2020-state-of-the-nation-address/npftybn)
Is this statement true or false?
According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), in 2016 Ghana had 1,560,200 young people not in employment, education or training. In 2019, there were 1,819,200 young people in that situation – an increase by almost 260,000.
Young people not in employment, education or training (NEET) are people, aged between 15 and 24, who are not enrolled in an educational or vocational programme and who also cannot find a job. They are the forgotten ones, the ones left behind – and their number increased from 2016 to 2019.
Even worse, ILO projects that the number of youth NEET will increase in 2020 too, reaching 1,858,300.
(Source: ILO Database, https://ilostat.ilo.org/data/country-profiles/)
Given these data, the only conclusion is that Nana Akufo-Addo’s statement is false.