Region falls short in creation of jobs for youth, MDG report says
By BERNA NAMATA
In Summary
Recommendations
- Africa needs to invest heavily in human capital development, particularly in the quality of secondary education, research and development, the report recommends.
- African governments must prioritise employment generation as a national strategic action. Job creation should be mainstreamed into national development plans and strategies
- Establishing sound labour policies and strategies is a necessary condition for growth by removing market distortions without obstructing efficiency.
- Governments must put in place measures to improve the productivity of the informal sector, creating an enabling environments for small-scale enterprises as well as measures to build relevant skills
East African economies are not creating enough
jobs or making life significantly better for the region’s youth, new
data shows, calling into question the effectiveness of the bloc’s
economic policies.
The majority of the youth in the region are
employed in the informal sector — self-employed in precarious conditions
with low or volatile pay, or employed on a casual basis without a
contract and social security, according to the newly launched Millennium
Development Goals 2014 Report (MDG 2014).
This is one of reasons why rapid economic growth
in the region has not substantially reduced poverty, states the report.
The report shows that although an increasing number of youth are
entering the labour market in Africa, the available job opportunities
are too few.
Africa has one of the highest youth unemployment
rates in the world, with 27.2 per cent of young people without work in
2013, up from 26.6 per cent in 2012.
Of all those unemployed, 60 per cent are young
people; youth unemployment rates are double those of adult unemployment
in most African countries, the report notes.
“Youth, who should be the powerhouse of
productivity, are mostly left out of the growth process. This not only
increases the dependency ratio, but also weakens the capacity of the
middle class to transform economic growth. For instance, on average, 72
per cent of the youth population in Africa live on less than $2 per
day,” the report notes. “The incidence of poverty among young people in
Nigeria, Ethiopia, Uganda, Zambia and Burundi is over 80 per cent.”
The report, which is a joint product of the Africa
Development Bank and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa,
the African Union and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP),
shows that although poverty rates in Africa have been declining since
2005, the pace is still too slow to meet the poverty reduction target.
Africa’s poverty rates have continued to decline,
according to the report, despite the adverse effects of recent food,
fuel and financial crises in the Eurozone.
The proportion of people living on less than $1.25
a day in Southern, East, Central and West Africa decreased from 56.5
per cent in 1990 to 48.5 per cent in 2010. However, this figure is 20.25
per cent off the 2015 target. In South Asia, the percentage is 4.1.
Unemployment is markedly high in North Africa,
where 27.7 per cent of young people in the labour force were without
jobs in 2013, up from 26.6 per cent in 2012. This is partly attributed
to the failure of many countries to develop their private sector to
generate enough jobs to reduce underemployment.
In addition, there is limited value addition and
low productivity in sectors that have significantly contributed to
economic growth in many countries, in particular the extractive industry
and the agriculture sector.
“If you look at the African economy, you see that
over 50 per cent of the activities that constitute the entire gross
domestic product are from the informal sector, and if you go to some
specific countries, it could be as high as 70 per cent.
Ayodele Odusola, the chief economist and head, strategy and analysis team, regional bureau for Africa UNDP told The EastAfrican,
“The informal sector is characterised by three main attributes — low
productivity, low salaries and very poor working conditions.”
He added that informal sector employment, which is
sometimes born out of necessity for those who are not able to find
formal jobs, has given rise to underemployment and vulnerable jobs that
count as employment.
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