The Hindu Business Line : India, Brazil taking youth entrepreneurship forward

All the countries are facing the same barriers to youth employment and need that extra thrust to integrate self-made entrepreneurs into the economic mainstream.

New Delhi , Jan. 25

INDIA, which has one of the largest youth populations in the world , will be in dialogue with Brazil after Republic Day is over and the chief guest, Mr Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, President of Brazil, has taken part in the festivities.

On Tuesday, the Brazilian President will witness the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on Youth Entrepreneurship between Instituto Negocios da Juventude do Brasil (INJ) and Bharatiya Yuva Shakti Trust (BYST) to share expertise on turning job-seekers into job creators.

The MoU between the two not-for-profit organisations will help both nations - India, which has a 51 per cent population below the age of 25 years, and Brazil with 47 per cent under 25 - to exchange best practices in identifying, mentoring and monitoring young entrepreneurs, the need of the hour for both countries due to rising unemployment.

The other areas of collaboration include exploring ways of building linkages between young entrepreneurs and mentors of both countries, especially for future trade links; exchanging ways of building capacity particularly involving the corporate sector; and working together for research and development of new models and tools using ICT and other technology.

The round table following the signing of the MoU on poverty alleviation, education and job creation has as much scope for India as it has for Brazil as both countries have over 20 per cent of their population under the poverty line (India, 25 per cent; Brazil, 22 per cent), high unemployment rates and over 90 per cent of the population employed in the unorganised sector.

For BYST, Brazil is one more country of collaboration. In the past year or so, it has built bridges with China, South Africa and Nepal to exchange knowledge on the most successful methods to create jobs for youth.

All the countries are facing the same barriers to youth employment and need that extra thrust to integrate self-made entrepreneurs into the economic mainstream.

Recently, BYST's Founding Trustee and Executive Vice-President, Ms Lakshmi V. Venkatesan, was in China to help launch Youth Business China where multi stakeholders, including the Chinese Government, businesspersons, ILO and the UN came together to solve the challenge of youth unemployment.

Despite impressive growth, China too faces a similar problem as India. Some 39 per cent of its population is under 25 and 300 million people live below poverty line.

In fact, despite the economies of both the countries growing rapidly; Asia now has 300 million unemployed youth between 18 and 35.

BYST has also linked up with South Africa's Youth Business Trust where the two countries can learn from each other.

What interests the other countries is BYST's youth entrepreneurship concept where a mentor from the industry helps the BYST entrepreneur overcome obstacles and enter the economic mainstream.

Other countries are interested in replicating the model and also networking between youth entrepreneur organisations, so that Indian corporates opening shop in that country and vice-versa are encouraged to put in place a corporate social responsibility plan involving youth entrepreneurship.

BYST forayed into Nepal in October during the Asian Summit.

In Nepal, the under-25 year population is even higher than India at 59 per cent.

The Nepali Young Entrepreneurs Forum (NYEF) and Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI) asked BYST to share its experience and advice Nepal's Youth Business Trust.

For BYST, it is a reiteration of its philosophy - apart from extending a small loan, of using the guru-shishya tradition between entrepreneur and mentor to counter the rampant issue of unemployment and underemployment in youth - an issue plaguing most developing nations today.

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