The greatest Challenge before any leader in the world today is the creation of meaningful opportunities for its youthful population in terms of gainful employment, decent livelihood and an optimism towards a secure future. This demand is even more pressing for African leaders with a fast growing youth population with limited opportunities.
The young people in Africa constitutes a whooping 37% of the population and make up 60% of the unemployment rate.
By 2020, 1.1billion Africans will be of working age seeking an improved standard of living and a place to focus their energies. History is a great reminder of where young people will focus their energies in the absence of meaningful economic opportunities. Hence the focus of African leaders shouldn’t be about how many millionaires emerges but how many millions we can get out of poverty. It should be about the structural adjustments that stimulates economic growth and shared prosperity anchored by a grand vision.
The springboard for Africa’s emergence will be a fundamental shift in paradigm from what the world can give us to what we can give them. Kenya is making a bold statement with its tremendous success in mobile technology while Ethopia is attracting huge manufacturing brands to Addis Ababa after a courageous reform in its power sector. This momentum can be sustained and scaled if only African leaders can look inwards and unleash the hugely untapped resources of its beautiful people. We must shift from a total dependence on natural resources to the cultivation and deployment of human capabilities.
Nigeria however mirrors the deeply rooted economic challenges of the continent by growing on its balance sheet and excluding a majority of its populace. The conundrum of unemployment has become somewhat a national emergency that could trigger civil unrest if not adequately and swiftly dealt with.
There are 17.7 million people between the ages of 15 and 65 that are unemployed or under employed. 44.3 per cent of the labour force are either unemployed or under employed, while another 25 percent aged 25 to 34 are unemployed or under employed. If our leaders continue to romanticize these figures, it won’t be long before the blood thirsty demon eating up the north east engulfs the entire nation.
What then can the government do?
At the risk of repetition, unemployment in Nigeria is a national emergency that must be treated with uttermost priority. Hence government must take critical but systemic steps in addressing these issues.
Firstly, government must gather intelligence in terms of collecting reasonable data about its people, who they are, what skills they have, where they work, where they live and any information that can be useful in economic planning.
Secondly government must identify labour intensive sectors with strong competitive and comparative advantage, or enjoys strong local demand with the capacity to create huge employment. A case in point is the tomato paste industry in Nigeria where the country looses about 306 million dollars yearly by importing tomato paste to meet local consumption. With the millions of tomato farmers particularly in the northern region of the country, Nigeria has no need importing tomato paste. Helping farmers to improve yield, commercializing their farms, setting up processing plants, creating access to finance and improving infrastructure to reduce the damage of harvested tomatoes, we are well able to increase the income of farmers 5 times their current earnings, reduce importation drastically and create thousands of jobs.
Furthermore, no country can grow beyond the state of its infrastructure. The shortage of basic infrastructure in Nigeria isn’t just an inconvenience but a daily hardship. Farmers have a huge problem connecting markets, distributors spend too much time moving finished goods round the country thereby slowing market penetration and increased overheads for businesses triggered by power shortages.
Nigeria has an infrastructure gap of about 300 billion dollars requiring a sum of $15 billion annually to bridge the gap. This kind of investment not only provides roads and rails but creates thousands of jobs for engineers, a huge learning opportunity for the local labour force and a transfer of technology that can be leverage on in future. Think of the 17 million housing unit deficit the country is currently faced with requiring an investment of N56 trillion. Think of the carpenters, plumbers, painters in their hundreds of thousands that will be engaged in bridging this deficit.
There is no doubt that such huge funds required to make such investments in infrastructure are currently lacking but a collaboration with regional governments, development partners and the private sector can accelerate the achievements of such goals.
Government can also create jobs and increase revenue drastically from other sectors that have been long ignored without minding its input and its ability to accelerate economic prosperity. Nigeria currently has over a thousand tourist destinations including 33 museums, 65 national monuments out of which two were declared world heritage sites, the Sukur cultural landscape in Adamawa state and Osun Oshogbo groove in Osun state. Yet the country looses 700 billion naira yearly and isn’t among the top ten destinations for tourists in Africa. South Africa which tops the list makes over 10billion dollars from tourism yearly. One out every 10 jobs in South Africa is supported by tourism. If they could do it, we also can.
Finally government should remove unnecessary bureaucracies like the long stretch it takes in registering a business and deregulate where necessary ( telecommunications companies have created over 3 million jobs, a fine testament to proper deregulation). The protection of local content is imperative and as such government should use tariffs and taxes to protect local production which stimulates entrepreneurship.
Most importantly, government should work with financial institutions to reduce interest rates and improve lending to businesses at all levels which accelerates the growth of businesses thereby creating a need for more labour.
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