Africa Day sets new narrative to address serious challenge of youth unemployment

Critical for continent’s governments to target mismatch of relevant skills

The celebration of Africa Day represents a milestone achieved by the forefathers of Pan-Africanism who laid the foundation for the independence of the continent from the yoke of colonialism and neocolonialism.

Nkwame Nkrumah in particular deserves recognition as an African intellectual who spearheaded the Conference for Independent African States in 1958 and the Organisation for African Unity (OAU) in 1963.

Since then, the OAU has metamorphosed into the African Union with the African Peer Review Mecha- nism (APRM) and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) as new instruments aimed at political, cultural and socioeconomic integration in the continent.

The theme for this year’s Africa Day celebration is “Harnessing the Demographic Dividend through Investment in Youth”.

This theme is very important as it seeks to set the agenda for a new narrative on challenges facing the Africa continent.

Young people constitute a critical catalyst in the development of the continent.

This year’s theme instructs all of us to stop and think about the plight of young people on the continent.

Even before we put on our diagnostics, it’s clear that youth unemployment on the continent is a serious challenge, and it is expected that figures will reach 214 million by 2018.

Unless innovative ways are found to address the scourge of youth unemployment, the continent will continue to bleed young people with skills to other parts of the world.

The continent will, therefore, lose on the demographic dividend as these young skilled graduates will help to grow the economies of other continents.

Those who are left behind will continue to be a feature on the continent’s main roads begging for food and work while others will resort to all forms of survival methods such as car attendants in malls and domestic work while some resort to criminal activities.

With the ANC’s failed policy schemes such as the youth wage subsidy introduced by the National Treasury, the Economic Freedom Fighters believe that youth unemployment on the African continent can only be mitigated by a set of policy interventions which include, but are not limited to, a regional industrial policy regime with absorptive capacity for skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled youths, the promotion of entrepreneurship among young people so that they can be self-employed and be creators of job opportunities, investment in infrastructure, expropriation of land without compensation, use of Africa’s minerals’ wealth for beneficiation and industrialisation, the creation of special economic zones, creation of critical skills such as engineers, accountants and medical practitioners, full implementation of the APRM and Nepad, combating of corruption and the promotion of democratic ethos.

It is important for all of us to internalise the thought process that youth employment in Africa is primarily structural and, therefore, needs structural solutions.

It is also critical for governments on the continent to target the provision of the right skills to overcome the challenge of a skills mismatch among young people.

African governments must also focus on expanding education beyond primary school and promote small, medium and micro enterprises.

‘‘ Africa will continue to bleed skilled young people to other parts of world