The Ahafo Regional Coordinating Council (RCC) has put in place a programme to train and present start-up tools and equipment to more than 3,000 young people as part of efforts to provide decent jobs and reduce unemployment in the newly created region.

The livelihood empowerment programme, which is expected to start this month, will focus on different business modules such as auto-mechanic, carpentry, hairdressing, dress-making, pastries making, plumbing, tiling, welding and barbering, among others.

The Chief Coordinating Director of the RCC, Mr Ebenezer Amoah, disclosed this to the Soireenews Sulley Dramani on the sidelines of the Ahafo youth stakeholders’ forum, organised by ActionAid Ghana in Goaso in the Ahafo Region.

The forum brought together institutions and organisations such as the Ghana Enterprise Agency, National Youth Authority, Ghana Education Service, traditional authorities, National Commission for Civic Education and the Department of Social Welfare, among others.

At the end of the forum, participants came out with a communique to be presented to the regional minister on the key issues that needed to be addressed.

The participants, among others, expressed concern about the high rate of youth unemployment, bad roads, teenage pregnancies and substance abuse affecting the development of the region and the youth in the area.

Mr Amoah explained that the training and the presentation of start-ups would help to give them decent jobs, improve their living standards and boost the socio-economic development of the area.

He said the council had secured some of the tools, with the hope of securing the rest before the end of this month.

Mr Amoah explained that the RCC was ready to adopt any business module that would be proposed by a trainee which was not part of the council's modules.

The Bono and Ahafo Regional Programme Officer of Actionaid Ghana, Mr Kwame Afram Denkyira, said high unemployment among the youth had become a major concern in recent times, explaining that the phenomenon was not peculiar to only developing countries, but had become a global challenge.

He said while the youth in Ghana had the potential to be a major asset to the economy, most young people either dropped out of school or completed school but were unable to find employment.

Mr Denkyira, therefore, called for special attention to be paid to the urban areas since more youth were migrating to those areas because of the impression that more opportunities existed there.