Young Africans facing poor job prospects as education worsens - report

LONDON - The quality of education and training provided by African countries has worsened since 2014, leaving many of the continent’s growing population of young people ill-prepared to enter the job market, an influential report said yesterday.

The Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIAG), the most comprehensive survey of its kind on the continent, found that on average enrolment and access to education was particularly low in the tertiary sector.

“This has resulted in the burgeoning youth population being faced with increasing struggles when entering the job market,” researchers at the Mo Ibrahim Foundation wrote in an interim update ahead of the full biennial report due to be published next year.

“The current pace of progress is going to fall behind demographic needs as the majority age group in Africa now is under-15.”

The report rates 54 African nations against criteria such as security, human rights, economic stability, just laws, free elections, corruption, infrastructure, poverty, health and education.

African governments have on average not managed to translate GDP growth into economic opportunities for citizens,”

Demographic developments are a hot topic in Africa, which, according to United Nations data, is expected to account for more than half of the world’s population growth between 2015 and 2050.

The continent’s population is projected to double by 2050, and could double again by 2100, the U.N. has said.

The IIAG interim report said that while African governments have made some progress in improving infrastructure since 2014, on average they were lagging well behind their ambitions to revamp their economies.

“African governments have on average not managed to translate GDP growth into economic opportunities for citizens,” it said. “Progress since 2014 runs behind the rapidly growing working age population.”