By Olakunle Agboola – Africa over the years has faced numerous social, political, and economic challenges which range from, violence, underutilized agriculture, infrastructure, lack of access to credit facilities, social rationalization, health facilities, and poor education to catastrophic civil unrest; which are linked to illiteracy, lack of proper institution and exploitation by corrupt and brutal political leaders.
It is obvious if these myriads of problems are addressed or solved, many opportunities would be open for the youth like entrepreneurship, which in turn, create millions of employment and solve the problem of unemployment and increase the per-capital income of every citizen.
Rampant unemployment plays a huge role in instability in most African countries, including South Sudan, Congo, and Somali to mention a few. Jobless youths fall vulnerable to recruitment by warlords, who use them to achieve their political ambitions. An employed youth cannot leave his/her decent job for a dangerous undertaking such as militancy, Boko Haram, or agberos to mention a few
Infrastructure development is a key to Africa’s economic transformation. The growth of the continent happens with the availability of adequate infrastructure. Many African countries still have an insufficiency of state-owned infrastructure facilities, and that should’ve led to an effective contribution to the generation of revenue for the government that could be injected into public activities. This necessitates for the state’s government to provide adequate facilities to the public, local, and foreign private sector firms to promote the rapid achievement of sustainable economic growth through Intra-Africa trade and investment.
Africa’s potentiality lies in its fertile land, water full of fishing as well as other water-natural resources that can help its citizens, in its knowledge and market transformation. With Africa recognizing its natural resource opportunity, agriculture could be a significant pillar of the transformation of Africa’s economy and development, this can contribute to the continent major priorities such as eradicating poverty and hunger in the region, boosting intra- Africa trade and investment, sustainable resources, promotion of industrialization, creating jobs, human security, environmental management, and continent prosperity.
Leadership is a major factor in the development of Africa and one of the reasons many African countries end up with bad leaders is the blind support of a candidate simply because of ethnic affiliation. It can be solved by sensitizing Africa’s youth on the consequences of their choices as well as encouraging them to shun sectarianism. Strong institutions created in the will of its citizens, can push forward true leadership, democratic governance, and unity for Africa.
Africa has the advantage of being able to leapfrog directly to use the latest technology. It is estimated that more Africans have access to mobile phones than to clean water and electricity, (World Bank, 2011). Although costs remain high, Africa’s Internet infrastructure capacity has increased tenfold since 2006 and the entire continent now has access to undersea fiber optic cables.
African countries should begin to be partners with other developed countries in enhancing conceptualization, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of developmental policies and programs like agricultural productivities and strengthening financial institutions. Most African countries tend to borrow from other countries more than they produce. By so doing, they end up burdened by debt; and usually, creditors use this leverage to influence the countries’ policies in their favor. Such dependence interferes with the sovereignty of the country.
Africa has a huge role to play in building a strong structure for human capital. That is all Africa needs to make a difference in the 21st century. If the focus is not on human capital, Africa’s natural resources won’t be of value or benefit to the development of Africa. On the contrary, Africa’s exploitation will be very difficult to carter away.
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