Programme Director
H.E. Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, AUC Chairperson
Hon. Bethel Nnaemeka Amadi, PAP President
Ms. Francine Muyumba, PYU President
Hon. Assoumana Malam Issa, Chairperson of the Pan African Parliament Caucus on Youth

It is my pleasure to welcome you to the 3rd Intergenerational Dialogue with the Pan African Parliament and the African Youth, aptly themed "Promoting a culture of good governance for citizen's action for empowerment of young women, as well as youth innovation and entrepreneurship”

This, we hope, will take stock of the progress made at a national, regional and continental level with regards to implementing youth development and empowerment.

This 3rd Intergenerational Dialogue takes place right on the heels of the commemoration of the 39th Anniversary of June 16 in South Africa.

This is an important historical event that arose the gigantic force that the youth represented in challenging the ugly system of apartheid.

The youth of '76 shaped a future for both our country and the whole continent and redefined the terms of struggle and resistance against oppressive and colonial systems.

I invite you to the many commemorative festivities that will be taking place from 01 June to mark this important historical event.

This dialogue also takes place in the aftermath of isolated incidents of attacks on African nationals in our country.

Our government, together with our people, acted swiftly in isolating those who were at the centre of these attacks and have since maintained stability in our communities.

We are more determined, as we celebrate Africa Day in a few days to come, to continue to build African consciousness and pan-Africanism amongst our people.

In general, everyone within the continent have co-existed and made Africa the biggest and warmest home for its children, and even for those who labelled us as Barbarians came to settle here.

If those who were central in creating borders in our continent can succeed in destroying borders within their own continents, we should ask ourselves why we fail in doing the same and creating One Africa.

We will only end this forms of violence amongst Africans if we destroy the borders that merely shelter our poverty, our inequality and our under-development and strengthens the fear and scepticism that African people will continue to have amongst themselves.

In this regard, I am reminded of the wise words of one of the greatest African statesman, Kwame Nkuruma, who said that:

"...We must unite for economic viability, first of all, and then to recover our mineral wealth in Southern Africa, so that our vast resources and capacity for development will bring prosperity for us and additional benefits for the rest of the world.”

Is it not an irony that as things stands, 50 years later after Nkuruma's words, the mineral wealth of our continent have somewhat benefitted and continues to benefit the rest of the world and have remained a curse that invited political instability, violence and dictatorships on the people of the continent.

On another occasion, in his seminal book, Revolutionary Path, Nkuruma, a champion of African Unity, declares that: "No independent African State today by itself has a chance to follow an independent course of economic development, and many of us who have tried to do this have been almost ruined or have had to return to the fold of the former colonial rulers.”

This Intergenerational Dialogue should be about our reaffirmation of the role that young women, and young people in general, should play towards African unity and in bringing down the borders that have kept the older generation divided, sometimes even on European terms and conditions, with certain regions referred to as Francophone and others as Anglophone, having nothing to do with Zulu, Swahili, Igbo, Hausa, Somali or Yoruba.

The youth of our continent, constituting 65% of the population, are a catalytic force for the attainment of Agenda 2063, and therefore the deliberations taking place here will be instrumental in placing young people at the centre of the continuous development of the African development agenda.

Whilst the rest of the world is aging, a youthful Africa has to take advantage of the potential demographic dividend that is brought about by this youth bulge.

Let us put books and pens in the hands of young people to educate and skill them for a better future for Africa.

Let us put books and pens in the hands of young people to educate and skill them for a better future for Africa, rather than bullets and guns to fight wars decided by the older generations and which further deteriorates our continent.

Let us build on the capacity, energy, vigor of young people towards innovation and entrepreneurship to take advantage of the huge need for industriulisation and beneficiation of our mineral resources rather than exporting these resources as raw materials in exchange for arms to fund our internal and civil wars.

The youth rebels we need should be in technology, entrepreneurship and innovation if we are to give true meaning to Agenda 2063.

As we meet here today, there are still countries that are yet to ratify, or even to sign, the African Youth Charter and therefore creating doubt about their commitment to youth development and empowerment.

We must insist that we cannot affirm a country's commitment to the goals set in Agenda 2063 when they have not appended their signature on the African Youth Charter. The future of the continent, which in Agenda 2063, begins with the implementation of the basic tenets of the African Youth Charter.

Next year marks the 10th Anniversary since the Charter was adopted in July 2006 in Banjul by Heads of Government. This Intergenerational Dialogue is, in our view, well placed to begin to lobby for the review of the implementation of the key articles of the African Youth Charter.

South Africa is on the verge of adopting a National Youth Policy 2020, whose intention is to tabulate government, civil society, business and young people's goals and commitments towards youth development and empowerment.

Just as in many countries in our continent, South Africa is equally faced with the triple challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality which predominantly affects young people.

Through this policy, and guided by the African Youth Charter, we have placed at the centre of youth development and empowerment issues of the economy, access to education and skills, entrepreneurship, healthy lifestyles, national cohesion and nation building and strengthening youth development institutions and agencies.

In the consultative processes, we have learnt greatly that we can never do anything for young people without their direct involvement and are therefore excited with the premise that this Intergenerational Dialogue is taking place.

We hope that what started in 2013 as an event to mark the 50th Anniversary of the AU, will not only end as dialogue in such an event but will lead to total integration of a youth voice in political, economic and social spaces and institutions in the same spirit of "Nothing for us without us” as young people.

I wish all the best in your deliberations, and hope that the outcomes of this Intergenerational Dialogue will take further the agenda of youth development and empowerment, an agenda deeply embedded in the African Youth Charter and Agenda 2063.

Once more, on behalf of the South African government I welcome you to the winter season of our beautiful country, your country too, and hope you enjoy your stay here and enjoy the African hospitality that Johannesburg is know for.

I thank you.