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Botswana Economic Crisis Sparks Youth-led Fiscal Overhaul Ahead of 4th Financing For Development Conference.
As Batswana grapple with a BWP 22 billion budget deficit (9% of GDP in 2024), rising public debt of 27.4% of GDP, squeezing funds for youth-centric programs and youth unemployment at 43.86%, underscoring the urgency of prioritizing job creation and social services for the nation’s youth-dominated population (70% under 35), the FfD4 presents an opportunity for Batswana to redefine global rules on sovereign debt, a critical issue for Botswana as diamond revenue volatility strains public finances.
International Youth Day 2025 solidarity statement
As the Harare Declaration states, the African youth bulge as an engine for the continent’s structural transformation agenda is at risk of being a missed opportunity due to being saddled with accumulated debt, while potentially being locked out of accessing finance that is desperately needed to invest in them, and making them carry the burden of a mortgaged future. Instead of investing in our potential, governments are forced to divert billions to creditors, too often to lenders who prioritise profit over people. This is not only an economic imbalance; it is a generational betrayal. We thus demand debt and tax justice that put people and the planet first.
Pan African Creative Arts Youth Competition 2025
Youth for Tax Justice Network (YTJN) proposes the Pan African Creative Arts Youth Competition. This initiative seeks to harness the creativity of African youth to foster innovative ideas and grassroots awareness around critical economic governance topics, including sovereign debt, the AfCFTA, climate finance, asset recovery, and the UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation.
Concours panafricain des jeunes artistes créatifs 2025
C’est dans cette optique que le Youth for Tax Justice Network (YTJN) propose le Concours Panafricain de Jeunes en Arts Créatifs, une initiative qui vise à mobiliser la créativité de la jeunesse africaine afin de stimuler des idées novatrices et une prise de conscience populaire sur des enjeux clés de la gouvernance économique tels que la dette souveraine, la ZLECAf, le financement climatique, la récupération d’actifs et la Convention-cadre des Nations Unies sur la coopération fiscale internationale.
YTJN Nairobi Tax Talks Day 7 RoundUp: Third Session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to Develop a UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation
The conversation then drifted on questions on how to handle disputes in the absence of tax treaties. For developing countries, the answer was simple … “No treaty, no dispute-resolution mechanism.” For them, the Protocol should not create new legal bases.
But across the room, private sector voices insisted that disputes do not wait for treaties; businesses struggle with uncertainty, and governments lose revenue. They pressed for innovations, with some calling for strengthening MAP, others calling for coordinated unilateral Advance Pricing Agreements (APAs), and others for the view that temporary unilateral relief would prevent double taxation.
The Taita Taveta County Youth Service Bill 2025
YTJN intends to once again collaborate with KYMCA to hold public hearings for the Bill with the citizens and the Assembly and then have the MCAs debate the Bill in the Assembly. This Bill once passed into law is expected to address youth unemployment, insufficient domestic resource mobilization, food insecurity, double taxation of youth operating in small and medium enterprises, teenage pregnancies, skillset mismatch amongst the youth, limited youth participation in formulation of policies and laws at County level among others.



