Pretoria - Positive strides have been made in creating jobs and work opportunities through the implementation of different initiatives in rural areas.
Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti said this during a briefing by the Economic and Employment Cluster in Cape Town on Thursday.
"While the vulnerable groups, particularly women, have been linked to income generating activities, it is the youth that has benefited the most in terms of skills development programmes and jobs created. A total of 7 398 youth were enrolled in the National Rural Youth Service Corps (NARYSEC) programme in 2010," he said.
NARYSEC participants are unemployed youths from rural areas, aged between 18 and 35. It is a two-year programme aimed at empowering rural youth from each of the 3 300 rural wards across the country.
Nkwinti said the enrolment number would gradually increase by recruiting a further 5 000 youth during this financial year 2011/12 and a further 10 000 during the 2012/13 financial year.
He singled out the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) as another programme that made an impact on employment through creating 540 423 work opportunities and 137 525 permanent jobs.
According to the minister, of these, 66 355 were under the Community Works Programme.
He said the agricultural sector, including the Comprehensive Agriculture Support Programme (CASP), contributed 7 092 jobs of which 1 105 were permanent.
The minister added that the use of local labour in housing and infrastructure development contributed significantly to job creation and skills development.
"By the end of December 2011, the Environment and Culture Sector of the EPWP had created a cumulative 307 731 work opportunities and 74 114 Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) jobs since 2009 across the country," he said.
Nkwinti said initiatives to improve employment opportunities and economic livelihoods include the implementation of the aquaculture programme and the Inland Fisheries programme that will be launched in 2012.
He further said the Department of Trade and Industry was expanding efforts to support agro-processing in rural areas such as local maize milling, while the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries was introducing a complementary agro-processing strategy and the Department of Science and Technology was continuing to support a range of demonstration agronomy and aquaculture projects that utilise new knowledge or technologies in supporting the development of sustainable livelihoods.
Assistance was also being provided to small and micro enterprises and communities that require support for a simplified Environment Impact Analysis (EIA) process as part of the Industrial Policy Action Plan 2 (IPAP2).
