Training Africa's Youth to Drive Growth

 

Africa is at a crossroads on the subject of unemployment which the World Bank estimates to be somewhere between 30-50%.  A change is largely required from the no-jobs and no-skills status quo that plagues young people.  Rather than government action, it is our view that the decisions private sector leaders make will be more important in determining whether the youth bulge in Africa will become a demographic dividend or a timebomb.  

 

There is a reason in this volte-face.

 

First, our education system hardly produces the quality of technical or academic graduates that employers seek to create local solutions to local problems. The typical tertiary graduate today is altogether unready for the world of work.  Yet, with degrees in hand, tertiary graduates of every colour demand jobs, and to deal with the social implications of youth unemployment and protect their jobs, African politicians increasingly respond with State-led mass employment programmes that do not develop their skills and competencies. 

 

Governments rather, should aid the transition to a sustainable solution based on clear strategic incentives and political agenda bi-focused on the growth of productivity, innovation and scale; and on the expansion of employment opportunities in order to unleash economic prosperity.  Government support should target organisations of all types and sizes across the economy if they commit to recruit and train the youth to address socioeconomic opportunities and make them competitive in the rapidly changing global economy.

 

Second, Africa is dependent on imported solutions that drive unemployment.  Businesses must pivot from seeing training young people as a cost to viewing people development programmes that emphasise mentoring, training, and metric-based continuous learning as a means to unlock untapped economic opportunities. 

 

The reality is that building local capacity enables local enterprises and the youth that work in and own them to develop unique skills and capabilities that create competitive advantage and buy the future that our society needs to thrive.  Unless Africa innovates, its youth will be cut out of technology developments, cut out of manufacturing, cut out of finance and cut out of markets – except as consumers and exporters of capital. 

 

The future will be very different from today, and businesses supported by governments must apply a quadrangle of principles to underpin the youth-driven transition to sustainable prosperity.

 

First, businesses need to think differently about influencing what and how we teach our children and students in order to align them with the future we want to create.  Then the new training paradigm can address how to sustain the engagement, motivation, performance of the next generation of employees and leaders in all segments of society and sectors of the economy. 

 

Second, governments and businesses must collaborate to get young people into applied learning outside schools, using training apprenticeships, attachments, mentoring programmes and self-development that will derive value for businesses even as they prepare the next generation of skilled labour in addition to their schooling as early as possible. 

 

Third, this future is only possible when the private sector and government agree a common mentoring system to keep track of mentees once they enter the structured development process.  The aim of each mentoring firm or entrepreneur would be to help young people to become better problem-solvers and innovators in whatever field they choose to work in.

 

Lastly, businesses must help mentees to track and improve their progress and employability with transparent tools for measuring how well they are doing on understanding their industry, their job, their customers and the evolution of all three.  The idea is not to train them only for today but to empower them to be a transformational force.

 

Far from a cycle of charity, it is important for companies to recognise that their role in the future will not be as takers of high calibre people without investing directly in developing the quality of the human resources.  On a positive note, these investments will tap skills, ideas and creativity that will feed their own innovation pipelines and leadership pool.  Governments also, must accept and articulate honestly that creating employment is not their forte.  Their support should aim at expanding the tax base in the medium to long term as more businesses thrive and hire more well-paid youth in stable, high-quality employment.

 

A role reversal is what the next 30 years will require and all stakeholders must eagerly embrace it. 

Youth-Driven and Youth-Centred Development – Africa’s Future

 

Ishmael Yamson & Associates Business Roundtable 2021

Theme: Youth-Driven and Youth-Centred Development – Africa’s Future

 

"Africa must stop being a museum of poverty. Its people are determined to reverse this trend. The future of young Africans is not in Europe, their destiny is not to end their lives in the Mediterranean Sea,” Africa Development Bank President, Akinwunmi Adesina

 

Africa is in crisis.

 

The continent suffers from a leadership deficit compounded over some sixty years of its post-colonial history. In that time, there has been a massive build-up of deficits in infrastructure, in technology, public sector systems, market access, productivity in both the public sector and private sector and opportunities for the growth and development of African enterprise and African citizens.  Since the Arab spring erupted in North Africa, there has been a momentum across the entire region for the inclusion of young people in a fairer socio-economic framework that supports and promotes the rights of young people to access economic opportunities, be part of economic decision-making and creates room for the innovations and business ideas of young people to thrive in a growing economy.

 

Without a doubt, African enterprise in financial services, power and tourism have done very well in pockets such as Nigeria, South Africa, Eastern Africa and in a majority of African countries, the telecom sector has proven to be a catalyst in economic development that benefits the youth.  But this is not enough. 

 

Africa is exporting its future in droves.

 

Consequently, Africa is losing its young people – both unskilled and professionals, who year after year, are willing to undertake the perilous journey to greener pastures in their thousands in the developed economies of Asia, Europe and North America in search of the 'better life'. The global community is as much frustrated with the lack of resolutions to the problems of Africa, as it is indignant about the migration of young Africans.  What drives this exodus, is the uncertainty of their future if they stay in Africa and the guarantee of poverty if they do not move. The future of the continent's economy and Africa’s place in the emerging Fourth Industrial Revolution are both at stake. 

 

The need for new thinking, new ideas and innovation has seldom been greater.

 

The nature of the challenges that Africa faces require a “new kind” of responsiveness.  The African Union, through its African Youth Charter, signed in 2006 in Banjul, the Gambia, enshrined the rights, duties, and freedoms of African youth to ensure the constructive involvement of youth in the development agenda of Africa and their effective participation in decision-making processes towards the development of the continent.

 The Youth is to “become the custodians of their own development.”

 

The youth account for 60 percent of all unemployed Africans.  They are the current and future workforce of the region, with about 11 million young people expected to enter the labour market or start running their own businesses each year for the next decade.   While there has been growth in formal sector jobs in some countries, most young people are likely to work in informal sector jobs such as household enterprises or in family-run firms.   To transform their economies in today’s borderless economy and global talent market, African countries will require knowledge-driven institutions and the untapped advantage of well-educated and trained youths who represent Africa’s vast potential to become the forerunners for innovation and disruptive change. 

 

Young people must take centre-stage.

 

Africa’s youth will be the implementers of the agenda for economic transformation. Therefore they must set the direction and define what investments are required to drive African development over the next decade in new sustainable industrial development, improved economic productivity and the accelerated creation and equitable distribution of wealth. 

 Shifting Young Africans to the Centre

Current leaders of African states and major enterprises must extend credible invitations to the youth of Africa to actively participate in defining, reimagining solutions and implementing policy to resolve Africa’s most pressing challenges that will evenly deliver ground-breaking development and wealth across the continent.