Protests: East Africa tries to tame an army of angry young men

Youth throw rocks at Kenyan police outside the Mewa hospital in the Majengo area of the Coastal city of Mombasa in February. Unemployment is said to be one of the factors responsible for violence. PHOTO | FILE  AFP

By TREVOR ANALO

In Summary

• The youth, frustrated with ageing leaders clinging to power, corruption among government officials and corporations and growing inequality, have taken to the streets to voice their anger. 
• While Africa’s youthful population has been hyped as a “dividend” in the midst of an economic boom, it may be hard to manage millions of poor, unemployed and uneducated young people trooping into overcrowded cities in the hope of a better life.
• Kenya and the rest of the region are not ready to take advantage of the benefits of a big youthful population because the majority of young people are not educated and are mostly engaged in the informal economy

• Youth with higher education stand a better chance at employment: study

Youth-led protests have continued to spread across the world since the Arab Spring in 2011. And taking inspiration from the Occupy Movement in the US, young people frustrated with the ever increasing social inequality, unemployment and economic policies of their governments, have taken their anger to the streets from New York to Mexico City, London to Berlin, New Delhi to Tokyo.

These anti-government protests have not spared socialist regimes like Venezuela, whose high levels of violence, inflation, and chronic shortages of basic goods saw thousands protest for months early this year.

Authoritarian regimes like Vladimir Putin’s Russia have not escaped this wave of discontent. Protests against President Putin drew thousands to an anti-war rally in September. Young people took to the streets to voice their disapproval of Russia’s involvement in the Ukrainian crisis.

In Hong Kong, the Occupy Central democracy protests are still going on four months since they started in September. Africa too, has had its own Occupy movements in Nairobi, Johannesburg, Luanda, Lagos and Accra.

The youth, frustrated with ageing leaders clinging to power, corruption among government officials and corporations and growing inequality, have taken to the streets to voice their anger. 

Unhappy and unemployed

Recent data from the UN reveals why young people all over the world are angry. Today, the youth make up 17 per cent of the world’s 7.2 billion people — about 1.2 billion are aged between 15 and 24 — and 87 per cent of them live in developing countries, particularly in Africa and Asia.

Globally, the youth make up 40 per cent of the world’s unemployed and according to the World Economic Forum (WEF), the risk of being unemployed for a young person today is three times higher than that of an adult. According to WEF, 357 million youth were not in education, employment, or training in 2010, and the number is increasing. Of these, 341 million are in developing countries. And 78 million live in Africa.

READ: Region falls short in creation of jobs for youth, MDG report says

While Africa’s youthful population has been hyped as a “dividend” in the midst of an economic boom, it may be hard to manage millions of poor, unemployed and uneducated young people trooping into overcrowded cities in the hope of a better life.

In a world where the demographic shift has tilted in favour of a youth increasingly impatient with the “old ways” of doing things, these waves of protests are likely to continue.

The East African region has one of the youngest populations in the world and it exemplifies the opportunities and challenges of demographic and economic growth.

While the region seems to be doing well economically, registering an average growth of six per cent this year, alongside the discovery of massive hydrocarbon resources in Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya, the benefits of this newfound prosperity may not trickle down fast enough to the average East African who is between 15 and 24 years.

At 78 per cent, Uganda has the world’s largest percentage of young people under 30, according to the 2012 State of Uganda population report by the UN Population Fund. And according to the African Development Bank, unemployment in this cohort could easily be around 83 per cent. 

Youth unemployment in Tanzania is low on average and the country may not be facing the same unemployment “time bomb” as the rest of East Africa. In Tanzania, young people below 24 are the majority, accounting for 64 per cent of the entire population, according to the country’s 2012 census. While only 8.8 per cent are unemployed, youth in Tanzania hold low wage jobs in the agricultural and informal sectors of the economy.