Skopje, 10 August 2023 (MIA) – The youth population has been declining since 2002, not enough funds go towards youth policies, and only eight municipalities have youth hubs, shows a survey analysis conducted by the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD).

According to Dona Kosturanova, Country Director at WFD in North Macedonia, young people need quality work and education, as well as infrastructure, improvement of care for the environment, sports, recreation, etc.

Kosturanova notes that not enough funds are allocated for support of youth policies.

"The law on youth participation adopted almost three years ago foresees that 0.3 percent of the state budget, and 0.1 percent of the local self-governments' budgets will go towards youth policies, but those figures are not realized," Kosturanova said.

She pointed out that according to the law, every local youth self-government must have a local youth council, but only 6 have been set up out of 81 local self-governments, and only eight municipalities have youth hubs.

"When we ask young people what they think should be improved, we learn that besides quality jobs, they want better education and infrastructure, improved care for the environment, sports and recreation, and other issues which are not only of interest to young people, but to all of us," Kosturanova stressed.

According to the survey, the majority of young people live in urban areas, and opportunities for young people in the rural areas are slimmer and limited, especially in terms of jobs and employment.

"Most of the local self-governments fail to allocate 0.1 percent from the budget for young people, and regarding the national budget, for example, the Youth and Sports Agency receives 0.2 percent, but from that only 4 to 5 percent goes towards youth, and the rest goes to sports," Kosturanova noted.

Youth and Sports Agency director, Naumche Mojsovski, said a youth strategy has already been submitted to the Government and is expected to be adopted.

"All stakeholders were involved in drafting the youth strategy, and I hope it will continue to be so. I hope that we can slow down the issue with emigration," said Mojsovski.

He expressed hope that the budget for youth policies will equal that for sports within the next two to three years, and the Agency will turn into a ministry in the future.

State Statistical Office director, Apostol Simovski, believes that policies should be created that will keep young people from leaving the country.

"Unfortunately, young people leave the country. For almost 18 years we didn't know what was happening, or we saw it, but did not want to acknowledge it. Today we can see the picture. We have to create and implement policies in order to stop young people from emigrating, and create opportunities for them to want to stay here because otherwise you cannot make anyone stay," Simovski stressed. ssh/nn/