By Odimegwu
Onwumere
Africa has a
variety of youth employment challenges and the youths are discouraged than
unemployed, connoisseurs have said. They are at worse discouraged through
working poverty, therefore sending uneasiness suggesting that there may be no
“New Africa” by 2063 if urgent measures are not taken.
“Working poverty and unemployment rates are strongly
negatively correlated in Africa, suggesting that many young people prefer
unemployment over working poverty and will choose unemployment in the hope of
finding a better job when they can afford it,” the African Economic Outlook, a
youth partnership forum, testified.
There are situations that characterise the youths that
include poor education, cultism, civil unrest, banditry, and others. On 2nd
July 2006, the African Union Heads of States and Governments saw the need to apprehend
the situations affecting the youths and they held a meeting in Banjul, Gambia.
The outcome of the meeting was the endorsement of the
African Youth Charter (AYC), which entered into force on 8th August
2009. The plan for the youths in that charter was titled “The Youth Decade Plan
of Action”, which target was to be realised between 2009-2018.
But that roadmap created for the effective popularisation,
ratification and implementation of the AYC, has yielded little or no result, as
the youths on the continent of Africa are still underrepresented in 2016. Failing
the youths, Agenda 2063 was formed at the OUA/AU 50th Anniversary
Celebration held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in May 2013.
The failure of the leaders in not making the youths
achieve their socio-pol-eco goals has culminated to youths on the continent being
used by politicians for shoddy deals, kept in ignorance and poverty in a
continent ranked to be in the fold of the world’s consumers, where households
spend half of their earnings on nonfood things.
"Young people
under 25 represent three-fifths of sub-Saharan Africa’s unemployed population,
and 72 percent of the youth population lives on less than $2 a day. To help
their families, 30 percent of children between the ages of 5 and 14 are forced
to work, which robs them of the educational opportunities that could break
their families’ cycles of intergenerational poverty," the World Bank
reported.
In 2000, it was visible
that $5,000 or above were made by many households on the continent as income,
but they finished them on consumption without creating effective local contents
for local and international demand in order to increase on domestic growth. The
sarcasm is that the youths are not fanatically trained to handle the future,
but situations in Africa have foisted on them that they must work to help
themselves and their families. They engage in ugly dealings to keep body and
soul together, while hoping to get better job avenues that are often rare to
come by.
“By 2030 there will
be roughly 24.6 million people entering the job market in sub-Sahara Africa
annually. This growth represents two-thirds of the world’s entire workforce,
which means job creation will be a necessity for sub-Saharan economies to
benefit,” said the source.
Skill gap
There is an
impression that the youths in Africa are termed as those not in need of job in
the labour market and will not contribute to the work force. But an informant
informed that the high rates of hindrance to engage the youths boils down to
removing them from the labour markets that they go through in Africa.
"25% of
African youths are still illiterate and despite a rise in primary school
enrolment from 60% in 2000 to 77% in 2011, the issue of low skills levels in
the workforce will continue to be a problem," the African Development Bank
frowned.
In 2014, Tighisti
Amare who’s the manager of an Africa programme at Chatham House, said, “Levels
of education in Africa are comparatively low creating a considerable skills gap
among youth at working age.”
It is a
confirmation that the different countries on the continent hardly factor the
youths into general and development planning, making the youths not to be united.
But these countries have in one way or the other blamed the rise in youth
population as the cause of unemployment on the continent.
Amare had rebuffed
that notion in a civic presentation, saying that it could be the lackadaisical
approach of the continent that has resulted to the negligence of the youths and
certainly, not the swelling in population of the youths that has created dearth
of employment opportunities.
“The correlation
however is not always direct, nor that simple. First, the youth bulge has not
created an even unemployment rate throughout the continent. Secondly, it is not
the numbers of young people that has created unemployment, but structural
issues specific to individual countries,” Amare said.
Population
The concern for the
youths on the continent of Africa is how to cope with the nonstop rise in
population when there are no job opportunities. While the world fears that the
youth population in sub-Sahara Africa alone is the highest in the world, Nigeria
is anticipated to outnumber the population of the United States by about 30
million people by 2050.
The World Bank
estimated in an account of 2015 that in
the sub-Sahara Africa, there have been 186 million to 856 million people from
1950-2010. Going by the analysis of about 11 million people a year, “by 2060,
the population of sub-Sahara Africa could be as large as 2.7 billion people.”
There is trepidation
that Nigeria, Ethiopia, Tanzania, DRC, Niger, Zambia, and Uganda will
contribute millions of people to the world along with China and India. These
countries will have the largest populations in the world.
“Compare this
demographic shift to Europe’s projection of a declining population – from 738
million people in 2010 to 702 million in 2060,” said the report.
An assessment is that
youth population is rife in sub-Saharan Africa, making it the highest in the world. Invariably, this population does not have the
training, skills and economic will power to arrest the future.
“The figures
instead are largely the result of specific economic and political contexts.
Lack of investment in infrastructure and subsidy for sectors with potential for
creating jobs for example, have created deep structural issues. In many cases,
these issues predate the youth bulge,” Amare affixed.
Among the
stakeholders who have raised their voices to carve a niche for the continent to
learn and relearn from the past and face the future with resources accruing
from Africa and in Africa, the Agenda 2063 is believed to be on the court of
the youths to handle. Nevertheless, the youths are not seen by their leaders,
who are mainly aged, to have significant economic roles to play in the Africa’s
development. This mindset has made Africa not to realise the potency of the
Private Sector as the engine of economic growth; and the youths would excel in
this sector.
Government at all levels
It was learnt that
governments all over Africa refuse to subsidise some sectors, thereby making
such sectors to struggle beyond expectation and most times close shops when
they could not pay their workers wages. This has affected the youths the most. An
example is South Africa where the mining sector, which is said to have an
estimate of 400 thousand people in its employ, had series of retrenchment due
to the struggle to meet up with the wages of workers.
The same was the
fate of the agricultural sector. The negligence of the youths has formed a stance
that the next 50 years, what will become of the youths protuberance in the
continent is fearsome, because many youths do not have jobs. And how to coordinate
activities capable for future challenge in Africa among the youths is yet
uncertain. Job and employment opportunities are farfetched for youths in
Africa. Many youths are born into poverty and they are yet to change that
mindset, because there is hardly any institution geared towards involving
entrepreneurial skills from the kindergarten.
Some who have
developed the entrepreneurial skills have problems of funding and the right
mentorship to excel: Problems that the governments at all levels are not
looking into assiduously. The disquiet is what will become of the youths by
2040 when experts have said that the continent’s work force will be projected
to 1.1billion from the roughly 500 million it is. While the sub-Sahara Africa
is said to be the height of youth population in the world, South Africa has been
pointed out as a country with the highest levels of youth unemployment in the
region.
Voices have been
raised that almost 50% of the youths in South Africa are unemployed. The World
Bank once saw Rwanda as one of the lowest youth unemployment rates in the
world. The revenues of the countries have not been really managed well upon the
economic boom that most countries had experienced. Unlike in the 70s, Africa
has GDP rising in telecommunications, banking, retailing, construction, oil, grain,
raw materials, minerals, roads, buildings, water systems, similar projects and
others.
While the countries
have been enjoying the economic boom, individual businesses are biting the
dust. In 2008, Africa was said to have garnered $1.6 trillion in GDP, measuring
that of Brazil or Russia. In 2000, records have it that Africa increased from
$9 billion to $62 billion in 2008 in annual flow of foreign direct investment,
roughly as huge as the surge into China. In 2008, oil rose to $145 from $20 it
was in 1999. From 2002 to 2007, it is on record that Africa had economic growth
in all sectors.
Yet, youths did not
find a successful ground even as privatisation policy boomed in African
governments in state-owned enterprises. The privatisation policy was hoped to
hype openness of trade, reduce corporate taxes, and strengthen regulatory and
legal systems, but to no avail as the continent continues to look up to the
West for donor. Africa’s per annum private infrastructure investments have
skyrocketed since 2000, rating $19 billion from 2006 to 2008.
Between 1999 and
2006 Nigeria privatised more than 116 enterprises; the youths sang Hosanna in
the Highest that things were going to be good. But till date, the country is
grappling with economic difficulties just as Morocco and Egypt that kicked free-trade
agreements with major export partners are still gasping for economic breath.
Challenges facing youths
Statistics have
shown that the youths constitute two-fifths of the working population in Africa
if they are employed, “they make up three-fifths of the total unemployed.” Meanwhile,
Africa’s labour force is expanding, in contrast to what’s happening in most of
the rest of the world. The continent has more than 500 million people of
working age. By 2040, their number is anticipated to surpass 1.1 billion – more
than in China or India.
“Over the last 20
years, three-quarters of the continent’s increase in GDP per capita came from
an expanding workforce, the rest from higher labour productivity. If Africa can
provide its young people with the education and skills they need, this large
workforce could become a significant source of rising global consumption and
production. Education is a major challenge, so educating Africa’s young people has
to be one of the highest priorities for public policy across the continent,”
reported Acha Leke, Susan Lund, Charles Roxburgh, and Arend van Wamelen of
McKinsey&Company.
World Bank held
that the existing rate in Nigeria, is 89 dormant people per 100 active workers,
and in Uganda it's 103. South Africa was said to have youth unemployment rate
of 48% in 2009, in contrast to 19% for adults. On the part of Egypt, there’s youth
unemployment rate of 25% compared to only 4% for adults in 2007. It has been
informed that each African countries has to pursue its own growth since there
is no central government on the continent and therefore, develop framework for
accepting how the opportunities and challenges affect its youths, by providing
business strategies and novel insights for policy makers.
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