In 2012, the International Labour Organization (ILO) acknowledged that across the world, young men and women face real and increasing difficulties finding decent work. Youth aspirations for jobs, freedom, and social justice, their deep alienation from the system that led to the economic and social exclusion of a whole generation of young people, generating extreme inequalities of wealth and income, have triggered the surge in youth-led protests against economic injustices of the world.
A 2011 “Youth Employment Interventions in Africa” position paper sponsored by ILO reckons that “the world is facing a global youth unemployment crisis. The structural nature of the global jobs crisis is such that there is a call for more definite push for growth and job-oriented strategies”.
The ILO report noted that whilst there is evidence of progress in designing and implementing policies and programmes at various levels, a number of major weaknesses and deficiencies still persist. This is particularly evident with regard to the sub-regional distribution of interventions and the quasi-total absence of post-implementation and mid-term evaluation mechanisms.
The Economic Commission of Africa in 2009 (ECA) reckoned that Africa is the youngest continent with children and youth aged below 30 years constituting 70 percent of the continent’s entire population. According to predictions, by 2050, 29 percent of the total youth population will reside in Africa.
The problem of youth unemployment and under-employment in Africa poses complex economic, social and moral policy issues. The problem affects the majority of adults in both rural and urban areas, even if its incidence is higher among youth, women, and rural populations. Available statistics suggest that employment growth has not been impressive in Africa.
Despite other factors such as slowing population growth rates in other parts of the continent, the African populations remains the world’s fastest growing and most youthful. “These high population growth rates place an unusually severe burden on the employment sector.
“In addition, the seasonal character of agriculture, low incomes in the informal sector, and various structural factors exacerbate the situation in the labour market. The result is that the young productive labour force in the region is under-utilized”, it is submitted.
The report observes further that “in Southern Africa, unemployment rates exceeding 20 percent are not uncommon. In much of the rest of Africa, too, unemployment rates are relatively high, though perhaps not as high as in some Southern African countries where the formal sector tends to be large”.
It is generally observed that youth unemployment rates are higher in urban areas than rural areas; youth unemployment rates are higher among females than males; and, the rates of unemployment of youth with the least (or no) education or with the most education are lower than the rate of unemployment of youth with intermediate levels of education.
There are two factors – the low growth rate of the economy and the limited relevance of the education and training system – that have been identified as key issues to how youth unemployment is susceptible to policies and programmes addressing youth unemployment.
The labour market has been skewed towards young men than women in Africa as the youth unemployment is consistently higher for young women throughout Africa. In addition, labour force participation in Africa has also been shown to favour young men, with women representing, on average, less than 40 percent of the labour force.
It is also estimated that children between the ages of 10 and 14 may represent as much as 30 percent of the continental labour force, effectively suggesting the presence of child labour.
Generally, the main factors creating sustained youth unemployment in Africa comprises of growing divergence between economic growth and employment generation; poor quality of education, training, and skills development; lack of comprehensive population policies targeted at the root causes of uncontrolled rapid population policies increase and unemployment; low levels of savings and investments that are not conducive to the creation of more jobs; post-independence policies in favour of cheap and unprocessed raw materials exports; and hence, dependence on the agricultural sector.
Given the present youth unemployment challenges in Africa, the African Union Commission, international development organizations, and regional economic communities designed and implemented projects and programmes with direct and indirect outcomes on employment, with varying definitions of age groups for young people.
The Southern Africa sub-region shows the worst conditions of youth unemployment on the continent. The unemployment rate in this sub-region reaches as high as 52.5 for females and 44.5 for males, respectively, in South Africa. Labour force participation rates are 30.2 for females and 35.0 percent for females in Namibia.
“On average, youth unemployment interventions in the Southern African sub-region are low, despite indicators signaling a severe youth employment crisis in the sub-region. The countries with the worst indicators on record – Namibia and Botswana – have no interventions targeting youth employment. This demonstrates that there is need for renewed commitment to designing new interventions and expanding on existing ones in the sub-region”, advises the paper.
The paper further points out that “policy makers do not, however, have a one-size-fits-all solution to the youth employment challenge. As African nations are not homogenous, the policy response to the youth employment should also depend on the particular characteristics of each country, with an integrated framework incorporating all other sectors of the economy”.
The paper recommends that one of the many essential elements of policy to overcome the specific challenges of youth on the labour market is to invest more in good quality education, vocational training, higher education, and initial work experience.
“Policies and national programmes that provide incentives to enterprises to hire young people, promote youth entrepreneurship, and facilitate access to finance and to other targeted active labour market measures, can also help countries improve upon decent work prospects for their youthful populations”, it is recommended.
The most familiar initiatives that have been undertaken in virtually all countries in Africa are public sector employment creations. Second comes the employment services that include the promotion of micro, small and medium-scale enterprises, including informal sector development.
The programme also found that the private sector participation in youth programme implementation was very low. This prevents the private sector, youth and hence, the labour market from reaping tremendous benefits. Another recommendation, therefore, is to increase private sector engagement in the implementation and even the design of youth employment interventions in Africa.
Of note, according to the paper, was the weakness in project and programme evaluation by the implementing organizations and partners. This prevents the implementing agencies and governments from evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency of the interventions in order to replicate them.
“Future endeavours in the design and implementation of youth employment need to include impact evaluation as the core component of their implementation activity”, it is advised.
The mapping survey also revealed that the strategies adopted by organizations for sustainability of their interventions is very weak. Implementing short-term programmes will not guarantee a sustainable decrease in labour market challenges to youth employment.
With a few exceptions, interventions do not have a clearly outlined exit strategy. International development organizations need to work on designing proper-phasing-out strategies to ensure the continuity of benefits accruing from the interventions.
This can be achieved through engaging the government in programme implementation and ensuring that capacity and institution-building components are in the forefront of youth employment to guarantee sustainability and lasting impact.
