Fight terror, create jobs for youths

Technicians making final touch ups at an FBME bank branch in Dar es Salaam. A report from the US Treasury says FBME Bank has been linked to many high risk transactions, including one involving a Hezbollah financier. Photo/LEONARD MAGOMBA 

THE BIGGEST challenge faced by the partner states of the East African Community today is undoubtedly that of unemployed youth.

If it is not addressed, the youth can be easily conscripted into extremists groups such as Al Shabaab, indeed are already being so conscripted, because they have no hope for the future.

 

This was the key concern of the Summit of the International Committee of the Great Lakes Region in Nairobi last week bringing together leaders from Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi, Angola, Central African Republic, Congo Brazzaville, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Sudan, and Zambia.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni pointed out that, without adopting a holistic approach to solving the systematic challenges affecting the growth of GDP within the region, unemployment among the youth cannot be solved.

The region has a clear shortage of jobs and skills, and economies that do not create job commensurate with the population growth. One of the issues the region must focus on is job creation.

It is saddening that leaders keep talking about youth unemployment, yet most countries are not giving their youth appropriate education to enable them to create jobs for themselves. It is good news that regional leaders promised inclusive growth and review of their education systems to promote entrepreneurship and innovation.

Sectors like agriculture and tourism are ripe for exploitation given the right policies and focus.  Poor economic strategies have led to a situation where the entire region is drifting towards what has come to be known as boda boda economics, where youths sell off land and buy motorcycles to come try their luck in urban areas.

The region must fully embrace the Common Market principles and remove all the non-tariff barriers that impede free movement of goods and services. The East African Community can only justify its claim to be the most progressive economic bloc when it translates into jobs and increased economic activity.

One of the challenges the region has is that free movement of labour is still restricted. Let the region agree that countries with abundant manpower should supply other partner states with skills without any restrictions.

Recent surveys show that the youth population in sub-Saharan Africa is increasing rapidly, with nearly 297 million being between the ages of 10 and 24. By 2050, that age group is projected to nearly double, to about 561 million.

Faced by economic uncertainty and lack of opportunity, they are a potentially lost generation. That is why extremist groups prey upon the idle youth to recruit them to their terror ideology.

In Kenya, for instance, Al Shabaab is no longer an ethnic Somali phenomenon but attracts anybody with grievances be they political, social or economic.