Known as Youth Agency Marketplace (YOMA), it is a dynamic digital marketplace that offers young people diverse online and offline opportunities to learn, engage in social impact tasks and build practical skills.

Its goal is to equip young people with the competencies needed to meet the changing demands of global and local markets, empowering them to drive positive change in their communities.

The Deputy UNICEF Ghana representative, Fiachra McAsey, who launched the platform in Accra today, said Ghana boasted a vibrant and youthful population, yet many of them were faced with significant challenges, such as youth unemployment, which remained high and underemployment and child labour which persisted particularly in vulnerable communities.

Additionally, he said, access to quality education and digital skills, especially for young women was uneven, hindering their economic and social progress.

"YOMA addresses these challenges by providing young people with individualised learning and learning pathways.

Funded by the Swiss Platform for Sustainable Cocoa and Swiss Secretariat for Economic Affairs, with support from UNICEF, International Cocoa Initiative and private sector partners, YOMA aims to address the root causes of child labour while improving access to quality education, health care and youth-friendly services in cocoa growing communities, " he explained. 

Describing YOMA as an open-source platform that puts young people at the centre, Mr McAsey said YOMA emphasised youth agency, enabling them to align opportunities with their aspirations.

Youth unemployment

He called for continued strengthening of efforts to address youth unemployment and underemployment comprehensively.

That, he said, required increased partnerships, greater investment in youth-focused programmes and collective action to ensure that every young person, regardless of his or her background had the opportunity to thrive.

The acting Head of Cooperation at the Switzerland Embassy in Ghana, Magdalena Wüst, said although Ghana's youthful population held significant potential for driving sustainable development, several challenges needed to be addressed to fully harness the opportunities.

She said child labour, poverty, limited access to essential services and inadequate employment opportunities were critical factors that undermined the ability of young people to break the cycle of poverty and realise their full potential.

She said the YOMA platform would equip the youth with relevant skills and offer the mechanism to validate their progress credibly. It would also directly create a structured and measurable path to youth development, she added.

Touching on the benefits for young people signing on to YOMA, the YOMA Global Team Lead, Michael Scheibenreif, said it offered young people access to a lot of different digital learning opportunities where they could learn and earn a certificate that would make it easier to find employment opportunities or get trained in entrepreneurial skills.

He mentioned Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa as countries that had already signed on to YOMA.