Good rural economies key to job creation

Agri-industries also crucial – UN

WITH Africa’s youth set to increase to more than a billion by 2030, the transformation and development of rural economies are crucial to economic growth. This is according to the “State of food and agriculture 2017” report by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation.

The report said rural areas, long viewed as poverty traps, were key to economic growth in developing countries, but sweeping changes were needed to unlock their potential to feed and employ a younger and more crowded planet.

It should not be necessary for the millions of people in developing countries who are poised to enter the labour force in the coming decades to leave rural areas to escape poverty, as these areas have great potential for economic growth pegged to food production and related sectors.

With the majority of the world’s poor and hungry living in rural areas, achieving the 2030 development agenda would depend on unlocking that potential.

But doing so would require overcoming a thorny combination of low productivity in subsistence agriculture, limited scope for industrialisation and rapid population growth and urbanisation, all of which posed challenges to developing nations’ capacity to feed and employ their citizens.

Between 2015 and 2030, the ranks of people aged 15-24 years were expected to rise by about 100 million – to 1.3 billion, with the total population increase occurring in sub-Saharan Africa. And if growth in the industrial and service sectors lagged, these countries would not be able to absorb the massive numbers of new job seekers set to enter the workforce, nor would agriculture in its current form.

As a result, rural people who relocate to cities run a greater risk of joining the ranks of the urban poor instead of finding a pathway out of poverty, while others would need to look for employment elsewhere, leading to seasonal or permanent migration.

The report said this was why targeting policy support and investment in rural areas to build vibrant food systems and support agricultural industries that were well connected to urban zones – especially small and medium size cities – would create employment and allow more people to stay and thrive, with the countryside representing a strategic intervention.

It said that although transformed rural economies won’t necessarily solve all the pressures that drive people to relocate, they would generate much-needed jobs and contribute to making out-migration more of a choice rather than a necessity.

Zwelinzima Vavi, general secretary of the SA Federation of Trade Unions, said the biggest problem facing South Africa was the crisis of poverty, unemployment and inequality.

Vavi said figures from the StatsSA’s report on “Poverty trends in South Africa: An examination of absolute poverty between 2006 and 2015” showed that in 2015, as many as 30.4 million of South Africa’s 55 million citizens lived below the upper-poverty line of R992 a person a month. This was 3 million more than in 2011.

He said the report also showed that the same period saw an increase of extreme food poverty to 25.2% in 2015 – up from 21.4% in 2011.

Vavi added that inequality and poverty were also linked to the shocking rate of unemployment in the country. According to StatsSA, a loss of 113 000 jobs occurred between the first and second quarters of this year and the rate of unemployment remained at 27.7%.

This was the highest level in 14 years. It also highlighted the realistic expanded definition of unemployment, which includes an extra 3.1 million people who were available to work, but did not look for work during that period, rising to 36.6%.

“These unemployment figures relate directly to the levels of poverty, because on average, earners living in poor households support not just themselves, but both people in their household and others to whom they send money.”

He said 10% of wage earners in poor households support themselves and four other people, 6% support five others, 4% support six others and some poor wage earners support up to 10 dependants.

“I welcome that a handful of business leaders and organisations have admitted that things have to change and are talking about ‘inclusive growth’,” Vavi added.