On the occasion of the 57th Edition of  National Youth day, the President of the Republic during his speech recognizes that the public and private sectors cannot absorb the flow of students and young people on the local job market. This was the substance of his speech to the Youth on 10 February 2023.

In his message on the occasion of the 57th edition of the Youth Day, the President of the Republic Paul Biya once again made a date: “…for my part, I will continue to make the necessary efforts to create, with the Government and other social partners, an environment conducive to your education, but also to your professional integration and your fulfillment. The Cameroonian Head of State also firmly indicated that he will, as in the past, “give priority to the development of our educational system, while placing more emphasis on professionalization”.

These wishes of the Cameroonian President are symptomatic of the problem of employability and professional integration of young Cameroonian graduates. According to the International Labour Organisation , about 1,500 students with a higher education degree leave local universities for the job market. The youth unemployment rate in Cameroon is 10.3% among young people aged between 15 and 24, and 8.9% between 15 and 34. This is a real concern for the government, which, according to the President of the Republic, does not skimp on training, in order to make “young people competitive and capable, not only of seizing employment opportunities that arise (…), both locally and internationally, but especially to become real self-entrepreneurs,” said H.E. Paul Biya. Self-employment and youth employment were discussed at length in the presidential speech.

According to the President of the Republic of Cameroon, the promotion of an entrepreneurial culture and the empowerment of young people are part of the solution to unemployment among this segment of the population. With regard to employment, the three-year special youth plan was cited in the presidential talk.

According to His Excellency Paul Biya, the State of Cameroon has spent 20 billion CFA francs on this plan, which has financed 11,000 projects and generated nearly 35,000 jobs since 2016, the date of its launch.This programme has undergone an adjustment through the establishment of a Guarantee Fund for young entrepreneurs. In which a special window dedicated to the financing of projects of young people in the Cameroonian diaspora.

As in his speech of December 31, 2022, the Head of State returned to the major projects underway or to come, which, according to him, constitute job niches and opportunities in various sectors: infrastructure, energy, mining etc…
With regard to self-employment, the President of the Republic presented opportunities in promising sectors such as agriculture, handicrafts and the digital economy.