Highlights on IMANI’s proposed reforms following engagement with Ministry for Youth Development and Empowerment

On September 2, 2026, the Ministry of Youth Development and Empowerment (MYDE) held a strategic dialogue at its offices in Accra with policy analysts from the IMANI Center for Policy and Education. The purpose of the meeting was to analyze the Ministry's 2026-2029 medium-term strategies, organizational structure, and program execution.

The conversation began with a presentation of ministerial accomplishments, followed by a thorough examination of fiscal hurdles, program conversion rates, industrial clustering, and health challenges impacting Ghana's youth.

Led by IMANI's Founding President and CEO, Franklin Cudjoe, the IMANI team included Evans Selorm Branttie, Vice-President; Ransford Brobbey, Research Assistant; Kay Codjoe, Writer and Associate; and John Sitsofe Mensah Mensah, a technology expert and IMANI Associate. The dialogue emphasized the stark disparity between the Ministry's policy objectives and its financial limitations.

According to IMANI's analysis, the Ministry's 2026 budget of GHS 1.6 billion is dominated by mandatory obligations, with around GHS 1.1 billion dedicated to economic transition programs. Almost GHS 1.0 billion of this allocation is consumed by National Service Authority (NSA) personnel salaries, leaving limited resources for entrepreneurial initiatives.

To address this issue, IMANI advocated for aggressive corporate co-financing tactics, encouraging the Ministry to utilize the corporate social investment portfolios of multinational manufacturing and beverage companies to enhance program impact without excessive reliance on the central budget. Both parties agreed that establishing a specialized statutory youth funding mechanism could be beneficial.

The evaluation of the Ministry's principal programs, including the Adwumawura Programme, revealed that the initiative's current reach of 54,000 individuals translates to only 200 beneficiaries per district across Ghana's 261 Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies (MMDAs). This figure was deemed inadequate given the country's high unemployment rates.

Critics argued that distributing isolated artisan tools should be replaced with cooperative enterprise models, where beneficiaries can access shared machinery, utilities, and centralized procurement opportunities. MYDE confirmed plans to convert ten National Youth Authority (NYA) resource centers into light-industrial parks, with two already completed.

IMANI researchers suggested that focusing on indigenous crafts such as beadmaking, weaving, and basketry could generate non-traditional exports and circular economy jobs, urging the Ministry to create aggregation hubs within these industrial areas to shield rural artisans from middlemen exploitation.

While acknowledging the importance of outcome tracking, the Ministry expressed concerns about the feasibility of assessing economic impacts within the first year. In response, MYDE announced the implementation of a centralized digital "Youth Tracker" system to monitor beneficiaries' progress across all state agencies, from initial training to enterprise incubation.

This tool aims to prevent duplication and provide empirical data on the long-term effects within local communities. The discussion also highlighted the need for a complete overhaul of civic and moral education from basic education upwards, emphasizing the importance of professional reliability, work ethic, and honesty in addressing structural gaps in the education-to-work pipeline.

MYDE unveiled its "TVET First-Choice" campaign, set to be executed in collaboration with the Commission for TVET (CTVET) and the Design & Technology Institute (DTI), aiming to reduce the stigma associated with vocational education and incorporate applied Artificial Intelligence (AI) literacy into non-formal training modules.