Participants at the ongoing World Economic Forum on Africa holding in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, have been asked to “think big” and proffer solutions to the development issues facing the continent.
At the opening session of the forum on Thursday, the Nigerian President, Goodluck Jonathan, told the participants that Africa needed all information and assistance it could get from the forum in solving its unemployment and infrastructure development challenges.
President Jonathan pointed out that the theme of the form, “Forging Inclusive Growth, Creating Jobs,” could not have been more apt than the time it is coming, as Africa’s unemployment rate is on the increase.
“In 2013 over 200 million people were unemployed around the world. It includes about 75 million young people between 18 and 24 years.
“Africa’s youthful population is on the increase and it is compounding unemployment issues in Africa. The median age of people you meet in the street in Africa is about 20 years.
“Nigeria for instance has about 24 per cent unemployment rate,” Jonathan said.
He stressed that the need to solve Africa’s unemployment issue had become imperative, with reports that 122 million workers would enter Africa’s labour force by 2020, a development that could compound the issue if the current situation is not tackled.
“By 2035, the combined size of Africa’s labour force will be greater than that of most of the heavily populated countries in the world including China. This is a major challenge to all of us. Job creation thoughts will occupy a greater part of every African leaders time. It is one of the concerns that keep me up at night,” President Jonathan said.
Challenges In The Years Ahead
The Nigerian President also pointed out that the continent needed investors in other different sectors of the economy, listing different strategies that the Nigerian government had adopted in tackling the challenges of power, unemployment and infrastructure development.
“We have structured our budget in a way that it will create jobs for people. We are putting in place the necessary conditions to support private sector growth. We are making efforts to ensure stable Macro-economic environment – low inflation and stable exchange rates -, investment in critical infrastructure, railway, power, aviation sectors and we are also investing in the development of skills for our young people,” the Nigerian President told the forum that opened on Wednesday.
Few weeks ago, Nigeria rebased its economy, which had shown seven per cent per annum growth over the last few years. The rebasing made Nigeria the lagest economy in Africa.
But the robust economy has not translated into job creation, a situation that President Jonathan said needed to be improved.
These strategies put in place by the government are still not enough, as the number of unemployed youths in Nigeria is still huge.
Some job seekers had died in March as a result of stampede caused by the large number of job seekers that besieged venues of a recruitment exercises of the immigration service. Nigeria says it is looking to solve the problem.
President Jonathan also listed some of the other challenges that participants at the forum were expected to discuss to include educational facilities, housing, health and security.
He said that the Nigerian government had put strategies in place in the Agriculture sector to unlock it for job creation.
“Our recent GDP rebasing exercise has repositioned the economy and by supporting the development of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises we are growing few jobs.
“We have launched our National Industrial Development Plan that also aims at empower small businesses that will, in the long run, create jobs. We have business plan competition for young people tagged YouWin (Youth Enterprise with Innovation in Nigeria),” he said.
Youwin is an innovative business plan competition aimed at job creation by encouraging and supporting aspiring entrepreneurial youth in Nigeria to develop and execute business ideas.
On the need for job creation in Africa, President Jonathan said: “Africa faces difficult challenges in the years ahead and we need to provide adequate infrastructure to create jobs for the young population in a manner that will provide unique dividend for them.
“There is the need for Africans to ensure that the growth that the continent is witnessing that is attracting investments in different sectors is inclusive and capable of creating more jobs”.
He emphasised the need for the creation of opportunities for people to take care of themselves, a strategy that had been identified as capable of ending insecurity in Nigeria and some other parts of Africa.
