Youth Unemployment and Education in Africa

Cross-linked at Bertelsmann Stiftung – Future Challenges’ site

In the year 2005, Africa’s youth unemployment was at 21 percent, much higher than the world average of 14.4 percent and second only to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region’s 25.6 percent.

 

Youth Population by Economic Activity Status in Sub-Saharan Africa, 1997 and 2007- Credit: ILO

Youth unemployment in Africa is a problem of alarming proportions precisely because 65 percent of the continent’s population is under the age of 24, with over 40 percent of the total population below the age of 16, and about 25 percent between the ages 15 and 24. According to the International Labour Office (ILO), youth make up approximately 36.9 percent of the total working-age population and about 60 percent of Africa’s unemployed are youth.

While Africa’s nations have seen economic growth that outstrips other continents, the high share of young people (ages 15–24) who are unemployed has the potential to undermine that growth. In addition to the economic costs of youth unemployment, there is also a social cost. As youth face long-term or cyclical unemployment, they can become disaffected and dis-invested in their own communities. This can lead to higher crime rates and greater involvement in underground economic activity, as well as social unrest.

A 2008 World Bank report entitled “Youth and Employment in Africa: The Potential, the Problem, the Promise” indicates that access to education is still a major hurdle. For example, in Kenya and Uganda, school fees were too costly for poor families, and enrollment rates were low. However, after Kenya and Uganda eliminated the school fees, completion rates for fourth and fifth graders from impoverished families increased initially.

In the case of Kenyan schools, the elimination of school fees was not enough, as detailed by a Center for Global Development working paper entitled “Why Did Abolishing Fees Not Increase Public School Enrollment in Kenya?”

Even where school enrollment increased, schools tended not to hire more teachers to accommodate their growing student body, resulting in lower qualities of education. Another factor- particularly in rural areas- is the the proximity of schools. The cost (in time or money- especially in terms of fuel use) to get to and from school is prohibitive to many parents.

As a continent, Africa has a long way to go in terms of educating, training its youth and providing opportunities to be economically active. Between heads of states who are not beholden to constitutional tenure clauses, the failure to make education generally accessible and relevant, and the burgeoning influx of migrant workers from Europe, Africa’s youth face a number of challenges. As Africa’s nations grow economically, we must be mindful of the fact that growing GDPs are not synonymous with less socio-economic inequality.

In fact, John Githongo, chief executive of Inuka Kenya Trust and chairman of the Africa Institute for Governing With Integrity and Kenya’s former secretary for governance and ethics, points out that as growth speeds up, so does inequality. In light of youth unemployment on the continent of Africa, this has huge implications on the social and political stability of Africa’s nations.

Questions:

What can be done to lower unemployment rates among Africa’s youth?

How can we better equip our youth for today’s labor market?

How can we enable African youth to become job creators without saddling them with debt?

Why I Support Africans in the Diaspora (AiD)

For all of my critiques of the aid industry- lack of transparency and accountability, paternalism- I’ve yet to offer substantive alternative solutions. (I did provide alternative local organizations in Northern Uganda during the whole Kony2012 thing). However, when Solome Lemma told me about her initiative, Africans in the Diaspora (AiD), I was on-board almost immediately. For all of this trendy talk on “diaspora engagement” beyond the micro scope, Africans in the Diaspora walks the walk.

Today, AiD launches its online platform: http://africansinthediaspora.org/

“Africans in the Diaspora (AiD) envisions a self-reliant, socially and economically just Africa. Through our Funds, Connections, and Voices programs, we unleash the financial, social, and intellectual capital of Africans to advance social and economic change in Africa.”

What’s not to love? An initiative that allows members of the African Diaspora to invest their social, financial and intellectual capital for social and economic change on the continent?

Best of all, if you don’t know where to begin, or you’re a skeptic, there are resources to address your concerns. My concern is always whether African-led initiatives at the community level are being supported. So much of the glamor around large international NGOs and aid agencies puts organizations like Physicians for Social Justice (in rural Northern Nigeria) in shadow.

If you are a Diasporan who wants to give back, Africans in the Diaspora is here to help you. The online platform provides information about local projects and organizations on the continent, and makes it easier to connect with them as a supporter. After all, we do not need to re-invent the wheel- the wheel is already rolling quietly at the community level, in the shadows of bigger international NGOs. Africans are at the forefront of development here, and Africans are the funders, designers, implementers and supporters.
Check it out! I am excited about the future of Diaspora mobilization and engagement on the continent of Africa.

Twitter: twitter.com/aidinnovations
Facebook: Africans in the Diaspora (AiD)
TUMBLR: http://africansinthediaspora.tumblr.com/
Website: africansinthediaspora.org

Indigenous Peoples and Resource Exploitation: A Case Study in Equatorial Guinea

Cross-linked with Bertelsmann Stiftung – Future Challenges Organization’s site

Indigenous peoples and resource exploitation. Who wins, who loses, how is the game played, how should it be played?

Map of Equatorial Guinea (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When one lands in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, it is immediately apparent how resource-rich this country is. The silk cotton trees greeted us with their verdant lushness and the patchwork terrain of high rises and densely-populated residential areas occupied my thoughts as the plane completed its descent.

It’s easy to get caught up in the potential, the unrealized dream of equitable development, but we cannot. Yes, it is true that Equatorial Guinea’s GDP has increased from about 1 million USD in 1968 to 14 billion USD in 2010 (World Bank, 2012). But where does this wealth come from? Equatorial Guinea is heavily dependent on oil. According to the African Economic Outlook report, 78 percent of the nation’s GDP is derived from the exploitation of its oil reserves. The fact remains that Equatorial Guinea has the highest GDP per capita on the continent (about 19,300 USD in 2011, a near 2100% increase from 940 USD in 1998).

However, Equatorial Guinea’s population of just under 700,000 has yet to partake in this wealth. This disparity is seen in terms of healthcare. The population makeup, in terms of age, looks like a bell curve – as “Equatoguineans” aged 0-5 and 65 and up are a small percentage of the population. The United Nations (UN) estimates that about 20 percent of

In the Face of a Receding Lake, Water Conflict at the Ethiopia-Kenya Border

Cross-linked with Bertelsmann Stiftung – Future Challenges Organization’s site

Lake Turkana. Credit: Wikimedia.org

In May 2012, the Kenyan government sent 200 additional reserve troops to the Kenya-Ethiopia border in response to Ethiopian militia attacks in the Turkana region. Tensions were high following the killing of a Kenyan police reservist at the hands of Ethiopian militiamen.

This occurs less than a year and a half after Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and former (now-deceased) Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s May 2011 meeting in Uganda, where they decided to end border conflicts amicably. In addition to water conflicts, there is the conflict of claims over the Elemi Triangle, which is the northwestern corner of Lake Turkana, bordering South Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya.

As I previously addressed in an article entitled “Water Scarcity and Conflict at the Ethiopia-Kenya Border,” water shortages have been contributing to tribal clashes between the Kenyan Turkana and the Ethiopian Dassanech, Nyangatom and Mursi tribes.

In the Horn of Africa, where regional temperatures have risen 2 degrees Fahrenheit since 1960, and are projected to increase an additional 2-5 degrees by 2060, climate change is particularly salient. The effects of this climate change: increasing variability of rainfall,deforestation and land degradation are all occurring within the context of rapid population growth and limited land and water resources.

An estimated eight million semi-nomadic people in Southern Ethiopia and Northern Kenya depend on the waters of Lake Turkana for their livelihoods. Lake Turkana gets 90 percent of its water from the Omo River, but in recent years, the lake has been receding into Kenya.

The conflict is further exacerbated by the diversion of the Omo River’s flow to Ethiopia’s upstream dams (including Gilgel Gibe III), considered the largest hydro-power project south of the Sahara. While providing electricity to Egypt, Sudan, Djibouti, Kenya, Uganda and Yemen, the dams threaten the livelihoods of nearly a million nomadic, pastoral tribesmen.

The question at this point is, “are we going to see a repeat of previous events?” In the first week of May 2011, fighting at the Kenyan-Ethiopian border claimed 34 lives. This, in addition to what Steven Watson alluded to in his lead article “Liquid Asset”- the disincentivizing effect of food aid and the perceived price of water, makes it clear that the price of water is high. However, our attitudes toward water use often do not reflect this:

“The moment international agencies give out food, there’s no incentive for the local population to help themselves,” he says. “I worked for some time in the Turkana desert in Kenya where that was very evident. As long as somebody else gives out food there’s no reason to try and provide your own food. It’s a lot of work. Why should you work when you can get it for free? Or take for example the price of water; if water is expensive for you then you will try to use it as efficiently as you can and minimize losses. However if you get the water free as is the case in a very large number of developing countries then there’s no real incentive to use it efficiently.”

Furthermore, in the late 1970s, the Kenyan government’s policy of arming the Turkana was followed within a decade by the Ethiopian government’s arming of Dassanech tribesmen with

The Great Land Grab: The Discovery of a New Aquifer in Namibia

Cross-linked with Future Challenges’ site

Namib Desert, photographed by Scott A. Christy

The arid nation of Namibia has a newly discovered aquifer called Ohangwena II, that spans its northeast region, which flows under the boundary between Angola and Namibia. The country is considered one of the driest in Sub-Sahara Africa, as it is largely covered by the Namib Desert. This is especially significant because the nation faces further desertification in the face of climate change.

The 800,000 people who live in the area currently depend on a 40-year-old canal that crosses the Namibia-Angola border for their drinking water. The new aquifer could supply water to the residents of Northern Namibia (who comprise 40 percent of the population) for an estimated 400 years. Historically, the scarcity of drinking water sources in the area has limited the scope of development. The discovery of the aquifer Ohangwena II means new opportunities and new challenges.

In response to this discovery, Namibia’s Minister of Agriculture, Water and Forestry announced on July 11, 2012 that his ministry will host a water investment conference in September to bring together the major players in the water sector. This includes the private sector, as financiers and equipment manufacturers would be essential to attracting private investment. Notably absent from the list of attendees are local residents of Northern Namibia.

The opportunity here is ripe. Public-private partnerships can ensure that all Namibians have access to safe water sources. However, the challenge of balancing profit with sustainability looms overhead. GRAIN’s report entitled, “Squeezing Africa Dry: Behind Every Land Grab is a Water Grab” warns of the dangers of privatizing water resources in the context of increasing water scarcity and increased propensity for water conflicts. These dangers are already seen at the Ethiopia-Kenya border and near Ethiopia’s Alwero River in the Gambella region, where deadly conflict brewed over Saudi Star Development Company

Is the Playing Field Level for Stateless Olympiads?

Olympic flag flying outside Eland House in London (CC BY-ND 2.0)

“Do the Olympics highlight “free and fair” competition, or is it just one more scene in which the developing world’s disadvantages are starkly visible?”

This is the question that was on my mind when I watched the Olympic Procession on July 28. Olympiads clad in colorful regalia pranced and strutted beneath their nations’ respective flags. However, there was one group that stood out: the three independent athletes competing under the Olympic flag. At the time, I did not notice the absence of South Sudanese athlete Guor Marial, who could not be in London at the time because of complications due to his lack of a passport.

When I learned of this, it struck me that this is a real disadvantage. Possession of a nationality, a passport and ability to traverse trans-national and international borders are taken for granted by most athletes competing in the Olympics, yet it is a serious consideration for stateless athletes.

The fourth of the 5 “Fundamental Principles of Olympism” (within the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) Charter) states that:

“The practice of sport is a human right. Every individual must have the possibility of practicing sport, without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play.”

What, then, does this mean for stateless athletes?

South Sudanese marathon runner Guor Marial will be one of 4 independent athletes competing in the Olympics this year. The remaining three, Philippine van Aanholt, Reginald de Windt, and Lee-Marvin Bonevacia, hail from Curaçao, of the former Netherlands Antilles, dissolved in October 2010. (Eight months following its dissolution, during the June 2011 International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Committee session, the Netherlands Antilles’ membership on the Committee was withdrawn.)

Competing as an independent athlete means rather than competing under their nation’s flag, they do so under the Olympic flag. Independent athletes fall under three categories that overlap: those who are stateless, those whose nations do not have Olympic Committees, and those who hail from occupied or colonized states. In Guor Marial’s case, it is a combination of the first two, as South Sudan has hundreds of thousands of stateless inhabitants, and does not have an established Olympics Committee.

In January 2011, the people of South Sudan- at the time, a de facto territory- voted for separation from the Republic of Sudan. Six months later on July 8, 2011, the Republic of South Sudan was an independent state. However, the issue of nationality is still unresolved for many Sudanese and South Sudanese. The April 8, 2012 deadline for residents in southern Sudan to declare their nationality passed, leaving several hundred thousand either stateless or residents of the Republic of Sudan.

This is due, in part, to the August 2011 Sudan Nationality Act passed by the Khartoum government, which declares that Sudanese may have dual citizenship with any state but South Sudan. This is especially salient for youth whose parents are both Sudanese and South Sudanese, as their nationality is based upon the nationality of the parent who holds legal custody.

Guor Marial’s story is one of the complicated ones. Born April 15, 1984 in Panrieng, in what is now South Sudan, he is a survivor of child slavery in Sudan during the Sudanese Civil War, and a former

Work in the Developing World: Outsourcing to Nairobi Slums

Cross-linked with Bertelsmann Stiftung – Future Challenges’ site

In the Lead Article, entitled “Work in the Developing World,” I stressed the need for policy, partnership and cooperation across the private, non-profit, and public sectors to create jobs.

This applies especially to addressing youth unemployment in the developing world, where in the year 2005, Africa’s youth unemployment reached 21 percent, higher than the world average of 14.4 percent and second only to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region’s 25.6 percent. Furthermore, International Labor Organization (ILO) statistics estimate that young people make up approximately 36.9 percent of the total working-age population.

SAMSource, a U.S.-based non-profit organization is partnering with Techno Brain- a software development company incorporated in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, with offices in 11 countries– to launch an initiative to create jobs in data entry, content moderation and other outsourcing jobs to hundreds of Kenyan youth from low-income households. This initiative, according to SAMSource Chief Operating Officer, Chelsea Cooper, aims to address rising unemployment rates among Kenya’s educated youth.

Lakshman Manickam, Director Operations and Human Resource at Techno Brain was quoted as saying, “The project we are in with SAMSource is about creating jobs to the youth from slums around Nairobi. We target those with IT skills that can help us do certain tasks for American companies.” These American employers include government agencies and corporations, including, but not limited to LinkedIn, Intuit, and the U.S. State Department. Additionally, local hospitals will be employing these skilled youth.

Essentially, SAMSource bids for contracts with employers in the U.S.’ private and public sectors, outsourcing data entry, content moderation and verification and other tech-related jobs to their offices in Nairobi, where youth from the city’s slums will be employed. Similarly, the Rockefeller Foundation has invested 35 million shillings (about 415, 500USD) into a project that aims to employ youth in informal settlements in Kenya, South Africa, and Ghana.

By funding the digitization of the Ear, Nose and Throat clinics at Kenyatta National Hospital’s four million records and awarding the contract to Techno Brain, the Rockefeller Foundation enabled the employment of 35 youth from Kibera and Mathare. As more hospitals and clinics adopt electronic medical records (EMR), there will be a greater need for skilled, computer literate workers.

As I said in the lead article, “it’s not enough for jobs to be created – they must be the right type of jobs, filled by the right type of workers.” Initiatives like these have great potential, as they match employers with contractors, matching jobs with employees. Beyond macroeconomic policy and labor market intervention, there needs to be multi- and cross-sector cooperation, as economic growth is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for lowering unemployment rates among African youth.

The Shrinking of Malawi’s Chilwa Lake and its Greater Implications

Lake Chilwa, Malawi – Credit: Kevin Souza (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Cross-linked on Bertelsmann Stiftung – Future Challenges’ Site

In 2004, Malawi’s population was estimated at 12.3 million with an annual growth rate of 2.1 percent. Malawi is the most densely populated country in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region, with a population density of 104 inhabitants per square kilometer. About 83 percent of the total population was rural, and 81% of Malawi’s economically active population was employed in the agricultural sector.

Agriculture contributed 37.6 percent of Malawi’s GDP (1.7 billion USD) in 2003. Agriculture accounts for about 90 percent of the country’s export earnings, of which tobacco comprised for 60 percent.

Malawi’s second-largest lake, Lake Chilwa, located near the Malawi-Mozambique border is shrinking, and not just seasonally. The lake, located in the eastern Zomba District, is about 60 kilometers long and 40 kilometers wide, the lake is surrounded by extensive wetlands. There is a large island in the middle of the lake called Chisi Island.

Possible factors include the climate change and declining soil fertility, which induce farmers to become increasingly dependent upon the lake for irrigation and fluctuations in rainfall levels, which alter the lake’s ecosystem.

Lake Chilwa is a shallow lake which shrinks significantly in the dry season, increasing greatly in volume during the rainy season. The lake is a center of sustenance and commerce, supporting 335 villages with over 60,000 inhabitants who participate in a thriving fishing industry. Additionally, the waters of Lake Chilwa are essential to local agriculture, especially as local farmers adjust to climate change.

The lake has no outlet, and is at risk for drying up if its waters are diverted for human use. The International Association for Great Lakes Research (IAGLR) has found that Lake Chilwa faces overfishing and increased degradation as the number of fishermen increases and as the population practices agriculture around the basin and inside the lake during the dry season. The full report can be found here.

This is salient because Malawi’s farmers overwhelmingly grow mono-cultures, and until recently, corn occupied 90 percent of cultivated land and comprised 54 percent of Malawian caloric intake, as covered in a previous article. However, in response to the global commodities market (cash crops like corn and tobacco saw prices drop, while cotton prices rose), many Malawian farmers switched to

The New City: Slums – The Problem of Sustainable Urban Population Growth and Infrastructure Development in Africa’s Cities

Cross-linked with Bertelsmann Stiftung – Future Challenges

In the year 2008, for the first time in history, over half the global population were urban-dwellers. By 2030, more than 60 per cent of people are projected to live in cities.

Where will these demographic shifts be seen? Africa and Asia’s urban populations are expected to increase 271 percent (from 1.7 billion to 4.6 billion) between 2000 and 2050, the rest of the world population is projected to stabilize at 4.5 billion. This means that, if the UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) projections are correct, half of the world population will live in urban Africa and Asia.

The UNFPA also projects that between 2000 and 2030, sub-Saharan Africa‘s population will double. (We must note that urbanization is not the same as urban population growth. The latter is only partly driven by the former.) This distinction is particularly important when we examine data, which, when misinterpreted would cast Africa’s urbanization as historically exceptional, when it is not. Part of the confusion stems from the fact that urbanization rate (“the rate of increase in the share of a region’s population that is urban”) and urban population growth rate (“the sum of the region’s population growth rate and its urbanization rate”) are often conflated.

The continent of Africa has the highest rates of urban population growth globally and millions of Africans are migrating within their countries, as an estimated 20 percent do not live in their birthplaces. However, the fact remains that the majority of Africa’s expanding urban population have cities as their birthplaces, not rural villages. As of 2010, Africa‘s 412 million city dwellers far exceeded North America‘s 286 million. It is estimated that by 2025, more than half of Africa‘s population (60 percent) will live and work in urban centers.

Compare this figure was 14.5 percent in 1950, 28 percent in 1980 and 34 percent in 1990. In 1960, Johannesburg was the only city in sub-Saharan Africa with a population of over a million; however, by 1970, there were four: Cape Town, Johannesburg, Kinshasa (in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Lagos (Nigeria). By 2010, there were 33 African cities with populations of over 1 million, including: Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Nairobi (Kenya), Khartoum (Sudan), Luanda (Angola), Harare (Zimbabwe) and Dakar (Senegal).

In response to a 1997 United Nations (UN) questionnaire, 42% of African governments expressed a desire to change the spatial distribution of their countries’ population. In 2007, this figure was 51%. Among African governments, there is a strong anti-urban sentiment, which manifest in laws and policies designed to curb rural-urban migration being passed in nearly 80% of African states.

Addressing African Youths’ Periods of Inactivity Between Educational Attainment & Employment

Cross-linked with Bertelsmann Stiftung – Future Challenges

Sixty-five percent of Africa’s population is under the age of 24, with over 40 percent of the total population below the age of 16, and about 25 percent between the ages 15 and 24. The issue of education is a recurring theme in conversations about Africa’s youth. World Bank data shows that in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, and Mozambique more than 75 percent of out-of-school youth have no “education at all.”

In a study of 13 African countries, findings showed that rural youth are less likely to be in school, and urban youth (except in Kenya) tended to have greater educational opportunities. However, rural youth often joined the workforce earlier and were less likely to be unemployed, compared to their urban counterparts (except in Kenya and Ethiopia) who saw longer periods of inactivity as they transitioned from school to work. In a 2008 World Bank executive summary entitled “Youth in Africa’s Labor Market, it was noted that:

“In 8 of the 13 countries reviewed (Cameroon, Ethiopia, The Gambia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, São Tomé and Principe, and Zambia), young people face about five years of inactivity before finding work; youth in Uganda are inactive for more than three years on average.