 The National Rural Youth Service Corps (NARYSEC) by the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform is designed to uplift the rural youth by providing opportunities for them to be employable through skills development. Over 7 500 young people were recruited by December 2012;  The Department of Arts and Culture’s Mzansi Golden Economy Strategy has introduced a number of high impact programmes targeting youth and women in the arts. These include the Indoni, My Heritage My Pride programme and the Trendsetter Initiative which aims to provide young people with life skills training, education and encouragement to appreciate who they are, their heritage and their culture;  In broadening participation in the economy, a review of the National Co-operatives Strategy and Co-operatives Act has taken place, following which Cabinet approved the revised National Co-operatives Strategy. The Co-operatives Amendment Bill was introduced in parliament in 2012 for debate and, once approved will create a few institutions to enable the flourishing of co-operatives. These are the Co-operatives Advisory Council; Co-operatives Development Agency; and Co-operatives Academy The NYDA is a government agency established by the NYDA Act (Act 54 of 2008) to tackle youth development issues and to be a custodian of youth matters generally. It is designed to work in partnership with government, private sector and civil society to achieve this. It also mobilises and distributes funding for programmes that support the development of young people. It focuses also on the training of artisans in various technical fields such as bricklaying, plumbing and boiler-making – a move to increase skills in traditionally neglected sectors of the economy. The value of loans disbursed through microfinance, and group SME lending over the past three year has created approximately 74 000 jobs for young people.35 The NYDA has managed to issue 9 913 micro and SME loans during the period under review. These efforts are geared towards providing access to financing, especially microloans, which have proven to be the main drivers for economic participation by young people in South Africa. It also managed to issue 9 899 microloans to youth entrepreneurs and 14 SME loans, which included the funding of social entrepreneurs. The financing of entrepreneurship has the potential of providing jobs for unemployed youth. It is, therefore, critical for the agency to continue funding young entrepreneurs as a means of creating self-employment for them. It has to work a lot better and cover a lot larger numbers of young entrepreneurs with a potential to make a real difference in this regard. 35 NYDA (2012): Annual Report, 2011-2012, government printers, Pretoria. 62