WASHINGTON, December 4, 2008 – Governments seek and often win power on campaign promises to create jobs and expand employment programs, especially those benefiting youth. Yet, the promise of jobs is more easily made than honored. Dire consequences have followed this failure of promises with youth taking up employment in the industries of crime and armed conflict.
Singularly in countries emerging from conflicts, helping young people to realize their full potential by gaining access to employment should form a key component of any peace-building process. In countries that have been spared violent conflict, youth employment is a precondition for poverty eradication, sustainable development, and lasting peace.
Such is the argument laid out in an essay titled “Youth and Employment in Africa: The Potential, The Problem, The Promise”.
Over 200 millions Africans are now officially designated as youth (i.e. aged 15 to 24 years). Youth make up 40 percent of Africa’s working age population, but 60 per cent of total unemployed. The share of unemployed youth among the total unemployed can be as high as 83 per cent in Uganda, 68 per cent in Zimbabwe, and 56 per cent in Burkina Faso. In all, 72 per cent of African youth live on less than 2 US dollar a day.
The essay draws from some of the data in the 2008-2009 edition of Africa Development Indicators (ADI 2008-2009) — undoubtedly, the World Bank’s best book of numbers on Africa — released Thursday in Johannesburg (South Africa).
ADI 2008-2009, its accompanying Little Data Book and CD-ROM, as well as ADI Online, cover more than 1,400 indicators on economy, human development, private sector development, governance, environment, and aid to Africa, with a series of indicators dating back to 1965.
The essay in this year’s ADI – the first to combine two years in one volume – attempts a portrait of the typical African youth, as given by medians.
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