By Olakunle Agboola – Youth unemployment in Africa is a much more serious problem than climate change and ought to be dealt with urgently. These were the strong sentiments uttered by Professor Patrick Edward, President of the Africa Movement, during 5th Africa Movement Summit at Cairo, in Egypt. The event focused on the challenge of youth unemployment in Africa, and probable solutions.
The event shared the wish to find ‘best fit’ solutions to a common problem: how to address the enormous challenge of mainstreaming youth in development processes successfully, towards achieving the central goal of the 2050 for African states to be well developed.Youth unemployment is a global challenge, but Africa seems to be worst affected. As part of his remarks, Professor Patrick Edward noted: There is practically no African country that doesn’t have this as their number one challenge.
He cited a publication by the African Development Bank on jobs for youth in Africa, which highlights that one-third of the African youth between 15 and 35 is unemployed and discouraged and another one-third is employed in vulnerable conditions, meaning informally and with a very low wage. This represents a worrying situation that, if ignored, will end up further marginalising Africa’s youth from socio-economic development processes, posing serious risks to peace and security as shown by the rising number of young people who are being recruited by radical extremist groups, and recent protests in some countries.
Some African leaders have acknowledged the urgent need to address the educational, economic and political exclusion that the youth are facing. Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda, said: Tens of thousands of young African bodies have been swallowed by the sea or abandoned in the desert, in pursuit of a decent life for which they are prepared to risk everything because they believe there is no hope at home. They testify to the urgent need to act. He concluded.
In his opening remarks, the Executive Secretary of Africa Movement, John Ndidi, placed quality education that is “fit for purpose” at the core of addressing this problem, as many speakers remarked, the problem of youth unemployment in Africa is the misalignment of what is supplied in the curricula and the demands of the market – this urgent need for education reform in Africa has repeatedly been shared by former president of Tanzania H.E. Jakaya Kikwete.
Equally, diversifying African economies is necessary and governments must facilitate a conducive environment for private investors to do business and create the much-needed jobs. Public-private partnerships were highlighted for their crucial role in addressing infrastructure gaps that hinder the ease of doing business. Recognising the informal sector (which is the largest employer of youth and women in most African countries) by facilitating access to financing for small and medium enterprises is also necessary for job creation.
The guest Speaker, Prof. Mathew Stone from United States of America said, “ One of the big implementation challenges stems from the disorganisation of the African youth themselves. The fragmentation and weakness of youth bodies in Africa (in contrast to women’s movements, for instance) undermines the cause of furthering youth development on the continent as there is no collective voice that might at least provide a coherent message on behalf of the youth, hence limited pressure on leaders to engage beyond the rhetoric”.
He continues, “this is not to say there is no concern effort from the youth. Countries like Kenya and Morocco have set quotas for youth representation in their national parliaments, and Botswana leading the way of appointing youth in their Senate and House of Assembly – all positive steps in the right direction that might be emulated by other African countries.
The #NotTooYoungToRun campaign in Nigeria serves as a good example of what could be achieved through proper coordination. The youth movement managed to secure the passage of a bill for age reduction to run for political office by both National and State Houses of Assembly.
Rwanda’s gender budgeting efforts might also teach some valuable lessons in this regard. Borrowing from the country’s example, a youth budgeting framework could be put in place with ministries and their departments encouraged to have specific goals for youth empowerment within a specific timeframe. As in Rwanda, this could be reinforced by a youth monitoring office that would be in charge of evaluating outcomes and hold ministries accountable for delivering on their youth-related objectives” He concluded.
The event had a lot of prominent people across Africa continent and the purpose of Africa Movement is to ensure that Africa is well developed before the year 2050 tackling major problems facing Africa which youth unemployment had been on focus in this year event.
Looking ahead, one hopes that, the African youth will lead better than their predecessors and not succumb to political infighting and create the right opportunities for the next generations.
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