Governments in the region have been urged to extend tax incentives to youth entrepreneurs to encourage young people to start business.

"Governments only focus on giving tax incentives, including tax holidays, to foreign investors yet less is done to extend such incentives to the youth,” Dickson Malunda, a senior researcher and economist at IPAR- Rwanda, said, adding that lack of incentives had left many youth at the mercy of commercial banks.

Malunda said tax incentives to youth enterpreneurs would help boost youth innovation and reduce the rate of unemployment in the region.

Unless this is done, creating employment opportunities will remain a myth across the region, Malunda said.

Malunda was presenting his research findings on youth unemployment, code named, "From School to Work” at a regional conference on youth unemployment in Kigali yesterday.

The two-day conference was organised by the Institute of Policy Analysis and Research (IPAR), a local independent think tank, in partnership with International Development Research Centre (IDRC).

"Innovations are scattered and not linked to create a well coordinated value chain. Governments must, therefore, listen to the private sector because they are the ones creating jobs,” he added.

Dr Edward Bbaale, an economist and lecturer at Makerere University in Uganda, said East African Community (EAC) partner states need to establish labour market systems that will cater for the unemployed youth.

"The academic qualifications youth are holding today are not helping them. Most of them are disgruntled,” he said.

In fact, about 64 per cent of youth are discouraged and have given up on searching for jobs, Bbaale added.

"The majority of the youth have no employment contracts and having no contract means you are in transition and could as well be regarded as unemployed. There is also a need to consider how much people are being paid.”

Bbaale said lack of public employment service centres and legal framework that stipulates minimum wage makes the challenge of youth unemployment even more complex.

Governments need to be mindful of the influx of the youth in urban centres, and work toward aligning education with labour market demands, he added.

Judith Uwizeye, the Minister for Public Service and Labour, said it’s critical to equip the youth with the right skills.

"Rwanda, like many African countries, is faced with high unemployment rates and under employment among the youth. The country’s Second Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy (EDPRS2) recognises the important role of employment towards poverty reduction,” Uwizeye said.

It’s clear the region wants to tackle youth unemployment. However, we should not consider youth unemployment a lost battle, Jean Philbert Nsengimana, the Minister for Youth and ICT, said.

"We should dig deep to unearth the real causes of unemployment,” he added.

To help ensure job creation for the youth, the National Employment Programme facilitates planning, implementation and coordination of employment programmes from different stakeholders, Nsengimana, said.

According to EDPRS2, government is targeting to create at least 200,000 off-farm jobs each year.

The country’s unemployment rate is currently at 3 per cent, according to figures from the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda.