13 August 2014 - 12 August 2014 (Menu/News/Multimedia/Radio) - In 2005, the United Nations questioned - "How do we let transform what should be our best asset - youth - in security threat?" The situation of youth in West Africa is a growing concern.

In ECOWAS, the level of youth unemployment is worrying: 33 percent of the population is young, between 15 and 24 years and, of these, 70 percent have no work. In Guinea-Bissau, over 22 percent of the adult population is outside the labor market and child labor drags 38 percent of children between 5 and 14 years, according to the UNDP Human Development Report 2014.

These levels of unemployment are only part of the challenge, because there are also underemployment, precarious work of long hours and bad salary, and the refuge of a significant numbers of youth in the stands of urban centers and tabancas, often in protest against abandonment from those they voted for. The bad quality and cost of education, the political and economic weakness of the country are additional factors to take into account for the profile of youth who want to believe in their future.

In Guinea-Bissau, the youth of the 80s is very different from today, which is not required to be politicized to succeed - professionally and socially - because over the last two decades new opportunities were offered by the democratic regime.

Today, youth are not running for political parties as the only way to get opportunities, Guinean youth created their own organizations, as RENAJ, CNJ, etc., in defense of fundamental rights such as Education, Training and Employment.

We listen for opinions on the important problem of unemployment and the output of entrepreneurship, a door to economic freedom outside the civil servants cycle.

Dito Max, president of the National Youth Council, said young people must be on the top of the agenda of government in Guinea-Bissau during the coming years, being necessary consolidation of a national youth policy.

The head of the Guinea-Bissau Training Center and Skills Instruction and Professional, Father Lidio Roma, said that during 30 years of work they have trained over 600 technicians in different areas and most of them are working in the field of their training.

The Minister for Education, Odette Semedo, said that the problem in technical and vocational training for youth in Guinea-Bissau has always been a priority for the government, but argued that, at the moment, the immediate priority is the definition of a national policy for training technical and professional.

Our guest of the week is the Secretary of State for Youth, Sports and Culture, Tomas Gomes Barbosa. For him, the youth is the largest population in Guinea-Bissau, that's why they should be the focus of collective effort for national development. But, over time, our youth always needed a guiding policy, he noted.