IT would not have been a bad thing had participants at the conversation on Jobs and Economic transformation observed a minute’s silence in honour of Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian youth whose daring self- immolation sparked off the Arab Spring.  The Government of Tunisia could not give the youngster a job, yet it would not allow him eke out a living selling vegetables in the streets!

Governments in much of the world, especially in Africa, are as guilty as the government of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali which drove Bouazizi to despair and ultimately to suicide in 2010.  Many of them seem oblivious to the danger of growing armies of unemployed youths in their domains even as they crave economic development and social stability. They seem not to notice rich governments’ (particularly the US’) obsession with “job numbers” and the strategic economic significance. 

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Africa has the fastest growing youth population in the world and now suffers the effects of so-called ‘youth bulge’, the presence of idle and unemployed young people in the developing world, which is a catalyst for internal violence as seen in Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The World Bank reckons that Africa needs to create an incredible 1.7 million jobs every month over the next 30 years to avert cataclysmic social upheaval. The pace of job creation is simply not keeping pace with population growth and expectations of African leaders meeting the challenge are bleak.

Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary, Ministry of East African Community and Regional Development, Adan Mohamed, is bothered about African youths’ lack of skills and education for most jobs in today’s technology-driven world. He therefore advises that focus should be placed on developing such labour-intensive sectors as textiles, leather and agro-based industries where the continent has comparative advantage. He projects that in 10 years, millions of low-end manufacturing jobs will move from China to Africa. When that happens, he says, the challenge would shift to market access, which may require replications of the US-inspired African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA).

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Dr Sahar Nasr, Egypt’s Minister of Investment and International Cooperation, believes much depends on government making the right policies to incentivize the private sector to play its role as a job creator.  She cites the importance of infrastructure and liberal markets in the economic development and job creation. She cautions on the wrong use of subsidies, which, perversely, end up hurting the very people they are meant to help by scaring the private sector away. A good example is Nigeria’s fuel subsidies which have kept investors away from the downstream sector of the strategic oil sector. The result has been underinvestment in the sector, which in turn has underperformed as a job creator.

Another panelist, Peter Njonjo of Twiga Foods thinks African farmers can make good living if the retail sector were not so fragmented and disorganized. Noting that 50 percent of disposable income in Africa is spent on food, he contends that agriculture can contribute more to job creation efforts and economic development than it currently does. His position is buttressed by Nadim Ahmed of India’s Global Tea and Commodities who sees value addition to primary products as the way forward. Ahmed believes that Africans can be innovators as demonstrated by Kenya’s MPESA, which led the world in the mobile money business.

The world may yet overcome the jobs problem, if Mastercard Foundation’s Reeta Roy has her way. She hopes to get 30 million youths worldwide find dignified work as opposed to just “jobs” within the next decade. Focused on Africa, the Foundation is committing funds to education and skills acquisition to prepare youths for sustainable employment in today’s fast-changing world.

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The World Bank, the seminar’s convener, says it is changing its techniques for dealing with global unemployment in tune with Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s advice that “we all must change our mindset”. The Bank’s “Cascade Approach” obliges it to switch from reactive to a proactive. It has upturned its strategy by first designing programs and projects before going after private sector investors to key in as it does with its Solar Energy intervention paradigm. This new approach has also encouraged it to open up 9 new country offices to complement the old 25 located worldwide. The time for sermonizing is over.

That is the way to go. The Bank can now use its own example rather than precepts to encourage governments and policymakers to tackle the scourge of unemployment before another Bouazizi moment erupts.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry.