Editorial Cartoon
Various government agencies and policy makers up to
cabinet level have been scratching their heads on what to do to resolve
the problem of youth unemployment especially for graduates, seemingly to
no real solution.
One formula concerning the issue is the usual method applied for
poverty alleviation strategies as a whole, of conducting surveys to
establish the size of the problem, which basically empowers
non-governmental organizations and ministerial agencies to an extent, in
seeking resources or organizing specific activities or efforts tied to
managing the unemployment problem. It seems this aspect of things is too
riddled with weaknesses to inspire confidence.
Speaking about the issue in an interview
lately, the Labour and Employment minister Gaudentia Kabaka affirmed
that unemployment in the country stood at about 11.7 per cent, which
tallied with statistics provided by the United Nations agency, the
International Labour Organisation (ILO) via its country office.
It gives statistics for unemployment in
other East African Community partner states as 40 per cent unemployment
level for Kenya, 30 per cent for Rwanda, 35 per cent for Burundi and 4.6
per cent for Uganda.
These figures suggest that the various
countries are managed or governed in quite different ways and perhaps
have profoundly different socioeconomic structures, so that Uganda can
virtually solve unemployment as a problem while Kenya has nearly half
the working population unemployed, etc.
For one thing, UN agencies tend to be too
close to official government agencies to be able to sort out what is
poor and what is properly worked upon in the sort of data they get from
such agencies.
Government agencies have a habit of
requiring auxiliary payment for any sort of activity that is done
outside office premises, and notoriously lacks follow-up and precision
on follow-up concerning the provision of various goods of services,
because of a culture of gaining from emergencies.
Once there is a great need for data or
provision of some other services tied to that wasn’t done earlier or it
was poorly executed, chances are that the government would unblock new
funds or a UN agency like the ILO provide funds for doing the work all
over again, and this way income projections of civil servants are
improved.
It is therefore hard to say which of the
various figures on unemployment in East Africa is “closer to the truth,”
and usually when one seeks to make out a case for this or that
impression, it is helpful to compare figures from different sources, but
unemployment is hard to determine by that method because not many
private agencies concern themselves with the issue.
It is easier to get cross-estimates on
inflation or GDP growth levels, but generalized data on population or
unemployment is habitually imprecise, and in that case formal state
agencies and various private actors like NGOs seek resources to sink
into the market for self-employment for youths knowing that there is a
wide ranging problem, but can’t ever be certain what is its size. Nor
can they measure proper effectiveness of their contribution, etc.
That is why UN efforts as well as the
mainstay of government agencies like the National Planning Commission
which is gaining excessive influence of late, as if economic growth has
again started to rely on government plans instead of private investment
and foreign direct investment flows, will remain a half full glass sort
of logic for the foreseeable future.
Wasting too much resources getting plans
into place in unhelpful because bureaucrats simply use those exercises
for income purposes, meanwhile as establishing statistics of
unemployment helps little, if the idea is for the government to see and
act.
The key issue is to accept already
negotiated structures of the East African Common Market so that business
is eased, investment flows rise, local credit circulation surge, and
industry thus creating more jobs.
SOURCE:
GUARDIAN ON SUNDAY
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