9th Annual Green Youth Indaba

ABOUT

ABOUT THE GREEN YOUTH INDABA

Since its inception in 2014, The Green Youth Network has successfully hosted 8 Annual Green Youth Indaba conferences developing a network of over 10,000 young leaders from all across different parts of Southern Africa.

THE 2024 THEME:

This year, the Indaba is themed Nurturing Entrepreneurship, Cultivating Skills, and Attracting Global Green Economy Investments for Job Creation and aligns seamlessly with the World Environment Day 2024 theme on The Journey to a Greener Future.

This shared focus signifies a collective commitment to environmental sustainability. The Green Youth Indaba amplifies this commitment by providing a dynamic platform for over a thousand young leaders, recognised for their contributions to environmental causes, to engage with industry experts, policymakers, and thought leaders. Together, they explore avenues for nurturing entrepreneurship, cultivating skills, and attracting global green economy investments, contributing to the shared vision of a greener and more sustainable world.

Green Youth Indaba not only aligns with the global conversation but also actively contributes to shaping it. The convergence of young leaders, experts, and stakeholders creates a fertile ground for innovative solutions and collective action, reinforcing the commitment to a sustainable and greener future.

9th Annual Green Youth Indaba Objectives

The objectives of this year’s Green Youth Indaba is to go beyond exploring opportunities for youth within the green economy but to effectively explore and unpack necessary strategies that can create easy access to support green innovation and create funding for skills needed to eradicate youth unemployment and poverty.

The Indaba anticipates over 700 exceptional young people, specially selected by their universities, municipalities and organisations, based on the initiative these young people are doing to better our environment. These youth and industry experts will come across South Africa to discuss the most pressing environmental issues and the green opportunities for youth within government, private sector and communities in South Africa.

100 Million jobs may be created by transitioning to sustainable energy sources and a circular economy scenario. However, some jobs are expected to become obsolete, and the benefits of the transition are not likely to be distributed geographically or demographically, unless further actions are taken. The majority of newly created jobs will require skilling, upskilling or reskilling of workers and it is for this reason that the Green Youth Network highlights Skills Development as one of the key areas to address Environmental, Economic and Social Sustainability simultaneously.

In order to avoid increased Social Inequality, Worker Disillusionment and reduced productivity and competitiveness across businesses and markets in affected sectors, future actions would require carefully managed just transition policies and processes.

DIRECTIONS