We have also seen strong growth in digital services and business process outsourcing, which
has created jobs for young people.
To support this growth, we are investing in skills development for the industries of the future.
The Jobs Boost fund has pioneered a new model that links funding for skills in demand to the
successful placement and employment of young people.
We are expanding our support for small and medium enterprises and for the informal economy,
which sustains millions of jobs and livelihoods across our country.
This includes streamlining funding for small businesses, unlocking venture capital for high-growth
start-ups, and developing a regulatory environment that enables rather than restricts informal
enterprises.
To build an innovative economy, the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation will
establish an Innovation Fund to provide venture capital to tech start-ups that emerge from our
higher education institutions.
We are calling on business to use the SA Youth.mobi platform, which has some 4.5 million young
people registered, for their hiring.
We are calling on business to support the Youth Employment Service and to scale-up workplace
experience opportunities over the coming year.
We want a nation where no one goes hungry.
For 30 years, since the dawn of democracy, we have worked together to reduce poverty.
Today, we spend around 60 percent of our national budget on the social wage: on health,
education, social protection, community development and public employment programmes.
More than 28 million unemployed and vulnerable people receive social grants.
More than 10.5 million learners go to public schools where they do not have to pay fees.
Last year, over 900,000 students from poor and working class backgrounds received funding to
study at universities and colleges.
Through these programmes, we are alleviating the worst effects of poverty.
We are providing the means through which South Africans can rise above the poverty that has
been passed down from one generation to the next.
But we have to do much more if we are to end poverty.
We must do much more to ensure that women in particular no longer face a hopeless struggle to
feed and clothe their children.
While government invests heavily to support poor and unemployed people, these programmes
are fragmented and sometimes difficult to access.
We are therefore building an integrated system of support for poor and unemployed people.
We are strengthening existing programmes from job search support to public employment and
making sure that together they provide people with pathways out of poverty.The formation of the Government of National Unity provides us with an opportunity to show once
again what we can achieve by working together.
I call on all South Africans, united in our diversity, to come together in the National Dialogue to
define a vision for our country for the next 30 years.
The National Dialogue must be a place where everyone has a voice.
It must be a place to find solutions that make a real difference in people’s lives.
The National Dialogue must reaffirm that each and every one of us has a role to play in building
the nation we want,.
While we may differ on many issues, we agree on one thing: that we need to build a better South
Africa and improve the wellbeing of our people.
And so, as we enter a new era in the world and in our own country, let us speak of the empathy
and compassion that we have for one another.
Let us speak of the pride we have for our country and for all that we have achieved.
Let us speak of the determination that won us freedom and that drives us forward now to a better
future.
With this determination, we will work together to make this an era of growth, progress and
transformation.
We will work together to build the nation that we want.
We will work together to build a nation that works for al
