Special Plenary Address by

HRH Prince Charles
Prince of Wales

at the
Asian Summit on 
Youth Entrepreneurship & Employment
30 October 2003
Balayogi Hall, Parliament House, New Delhi

I must apologise for appearing here rather late in the day but I have got here and if I may say so I am so thrilled to be back in India again, a country and the people for whom I have nothing but the greatest affection. I am also particularly delighted to join you all here this afternoon in this conference on Youth Entrepreneurship & Employment. These, as all of you know, far better than I am, are critical connected issues. I know you have been discussing different perspectives on how entrepreneurship can develop opportunities for young people in India and what can be learnt from the successes.

On my last visit to India, I recollect over10 years ago now, I was enormously proud to launch the BYST which has been modelled upon my Youth Business Trust in the United Kingdom entirely as a result of a conversation I had with Lakshmi during her father’s state visits to the UK.

If it hadn’t been for her and her unstoppable energy, I promise you, ladies and gentlemen, none of these - none of these at all would have happened. It is really now wonderful to see how far the BYST has come. The BYST has spread its programmes across the whole of India in both rural and urban area.

On top of this BYST has begun to act as a conduit to spread enterprise programmes to other nations within Asia. Now to be honest, I would never have imagined in the early days of my Prince’s Trust in the United Kingdom that we could have possibly grown to such proportions after 28 years. It has now helped more than 60,000 people in self-employment. Two thirds of these businesses are trading in their third year. More than 7000 mentors are now engaged and quite a few of those I remember in the early days I had to go around recruiting myself from trade and professional associations and so on and so forth.

You can perhaps imagine what surprise satisfaction and pride it has given me to witness how this model has become so well adapted in India and indeed, across the world. We are now seeing the same encouraging proportion of business success from BYST enterprises here as we have seen over more than two decades in the United Kingdom. In fact, it sounds as though in India the success rate is substantially higher as something like 95% than in the United Kingdom. So I have to go back and tell them to do far better now after seeing what could be done here in India.

I suppose, it proves that the principles of self-reliance and entrepreneurship are somehow universal. That point was brought home to me when I met the young lady named P K Subbha two years ago. She had broken through a whole range of barriers and set about establishing a printing business. That business has become a tremendous success and she has been recognised for the JRD Tata award here in India. It is interesting to discover that she had become such a fine ambassador for BYST that she was travelling to the UK whilst her husband stayed at home to look after the business back in Tamil Nadu.

There are hundreds of such similar stories have confound the many sceptics who said that the approach we have taken could not work. Many have doubted whether these initiatives could be sustained or whether they offered anything different from the very important micro-credit movement which we can see here in India and of course, elsewhere.

Many doubted that the new businesses could grow to any scale or that the private sector would become a serious supporter. Many questioned the role of the business mentors who in my view are absolutely critical to the whole process and incidentally, make it pretty unique. Frankly, many wondered whether young people could be motivated by the risks and opportunities of self employment. It seems to me that what we have seen as BYST’s achievement over the last 10 years confounds these sceptics.

It also offers a real sense of optimism about the future. Of course, self-employment is not a destiny for all young people. But it can be a vital element in providing decent productive work, resolving poverty and contributing to sustainable and peaceful communities -- both urban and rural. Besides, much of this employment takes place at the subsistence level --which is the informal sector. This is important because the informal sector is the safety net of communities throughout the world and the bedrock of sustainability.

In a world with a rapidly rising population the magnitude of the problem of ensuring livelihoods to young people is profoundly daunting. According to the World Bank some 500 million new jobs have to be created worldwide mainly in developing nations with exceptionally young populations simply to provide for new entrance to job market in the next decade. I think the model that BYST is advocating across Asia can play a critical role in helping to tackle this urgent and overwhelming challenge.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, the success of the BYST has been underpinned by Indian industry which has offered both money and mentoring to Indian youngsters. In most of the cases, none of the employment and educational opportunities many of us in this room would take for granted are available. I am enormously encouraged to see the commitment made ten years ago by Indian corporate such as the Tata group, Bajaj Group, Godrej Group, Escorts and the Confederation of Indian Industry is still as strong as ever.

I look forward to seeing them lead Indian industry in taking the BYST programme to all corners of the country. In this regard I am indebted to Rahul Bajaj who as a Chairman of BYST has set a shining example of corporate social responsibility.

Perhaps it is in rural India BYST can profoundly influence the range of life opportunities for young people. BYST is giving a helping hand to many rural youngsters who have received limited education and have started working life early. This is the group with greater aspirations but limited opportunities who fall outside the reach of most government and NGO programmes. So I look with great interest at the innovative mobile mentoring clinics that the BYST has used to take enterprise programme deep into the villages and small towns of India.

In a truly remarkable story, we have successful urban Indians many facing their own professional pressures travelling to villages each month to meet those whom they are mentoring. They work to bridge the gap between the two India’s and give rural youngsters access to the realm of possibility which the modern economy provides. The BYST mentors are the backbone of programme and offer really a fine example. I am delighted to have met some of them today and have been able to congratulate them warmly.

Ladies and gentlemen, anyone with some knowledge of India is always awed by its size and its diversity. BYST will require the co-operation of national as well as local governments to expand enterprise programmes to even more cities and villages across India. I am delighted that the dialogue has begun between BYST, Planning Commission and the Youth Employment Network - and has been bolstered by the keen interest of Shri Vajpayee and Shri Pant. This underlines the importance of partnership in addressing this global issue. Governments have a critical interest. I hope at all levels governments seek to simplify business registration and help business start ups by giving incentives.

Over the last few years a growing number of countries have seen what can be achieved and a vast number of us can follow BYST’s example. In the face of this interest, 4 years ago, we decided to create a new organisation Youth Business International. BYST is part of the YBI network and will now launch a centre of excellence to cover the whole of Asia. BYST has already taken programmes to nations such as Sri Lanka, The Philippines and Mauritius and we are counting on India to spread the programme to other nations such as Indonesia, Nepal, China and Malaysia over the coming years.

Mr Kofi Annan has said through his millennium declaration that the most important of his millennium development goals is to provide decent and productive work to young people. Youth unemployment and alienation is one of the greatest challenges we face. Young people are our greatest asset, so no country can afford the waste of talent and energy which youth unemployment represents.

Ladies and gentlemen, let me finish by giving a special vote of thanks to all of you in India who have contributed over the years to the success of BYST. I congratulate you on organising this first ever Asian summit. I do hope through it that we will one day be able to celebrate the multiplication of achievements of the BYST in India right across Asia and see young people fully engaged in society. After all, what this entire venture is about, I think is the vital importance of investing in the future. The real results will probably only become apparent after many of us, certainly myself, have shuffled off this mortal soil.

Thank you.

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