As indicated, the focus of this paper will be narrowed down to the challenge of youth unemployment. To effectively take on this it is useful to begin with definition of the concepts of ‘youth’ and ‘unemployment.’ The paper adopts the definition espoused by the World Bank on youth unemployment which is: ‘the share of the labour force aged between 15 and 24 without work but available for and seeking employment’ (World Bank Development Indicators 2007). However, countries have been found to use their own definition of youth depending on cultural, institutional and political considerations. South Africa’s National Youth Policy (2009-2014) defines the youth age group as being between the ages of 15 and 35 years old. The motivation for the expansion of the age group range is based on historical political imbalances citing that the fruits of democracy have not as yet reversed these imbalances (National Youth Commission act no 16 of 1996). Interestingly, in policy positions the South African government differentiates between 15-24 year olds and 25 -35 year old. This differentiation is useful to the extent that it does allow for some comparison along international benchmarks. Definitions aside; South Africa has a youth unemployment crisis. When compared with its emerging market peers this crisis is glaring. If the employment ratio, which is the proportion of the working age population, is taken into consideration, South Africa falls short of its emerging market peers especially within the BRICS bloc (Blumenfeld 2012). In China, employment attracts 71% of the working age population, 65% in Brazil which slightly above Russia’s 57’% and India’s 55%. These numbers are a stark contrast to South Africa’s 40.8%. Outside of the BRICS comparison, according to Blumenfeld (2012) the average employment ratio across 19 emerging markets is 56%. This picture worsens when the youth segment (15-24 year-olds) is honed in on. South Africa’s youth employment ratio is 12.5%. This means that one in eight young people in South Africa are employed, this compared with 36% across emerging markets (Blumenfeld, 2012).>