Youth are pivotal to the success of the Africa Free Continental Trade Agreement (AfCFTA)
With as much as 75 percent of Africans under 36 years of age , success of the AfCFTA is directly linked to the ability of African countries to keep youth connected to the labour market
The Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is Africa’s master plan towards accelerating intra-African trade and boost Africa’s trading position globally while accelerating and re-enforcing sustainable development. Covering 54 countries, the AfCFTA will be the largest trade bloc globally covering 1.2 billion people with a combined economic output of US$2.5 trillion.
With as much as 75 percent of Africans under 36 years of age — the official African Union upper age limit of youth, success of the AfCFTA is directly linked to the ability of African countries to keep youth connected to the labour market. Unlike their engaged counterparts who are either employed or actively seeking employment, discouraged youth are disengaged from the labour market as they are simultaneously unemployed and have given up seeking employment.
Despite registering robust growth rates over the last 20 years, economic growth in Africa has largely been ‘jobless’. The experience has been harsher for youth with an estimated one in 4 youths not in employment, education or training, emphasizing the challenge threatening to waylay the success of the AfCFTA.
Survey data from the Afrobarometer collected across 36 African countries offers some insights on the conditions of discouraged youth. This offers an opportunity to understand how African can transform its youth bulge productively.
Underscoring the importance of jobs in society, the data shows that unemployment is, by far, the predominant issue African youth most associate with being the most important problem. It points to the growing anxiety among youth regarding the continent’s economic performance. Importantly, it is an anxiety which left unsatisfied could potentially drive issues such as political instability, irregular migration and brain drain at a time that the continent is in urgent need of skills.
Jobless economic growth in Africa between 2000 and 2018 does not however negate the primacy of economic growth in ensuring youth remain engaged with the labour market and society. That economic growth is a necessary, albeit not sufficient condition, the data suggests that vulnerability to being discouraged was lowest among countries that registered average GDP above US$83 billion together with average GDP growth rates above 6 (or an average per capita GDP growth rate above 3 percent) in the 19 years between 2000 and 2018.
Botswana and São Tomé & Príncipe on the other hand illustrate that in small economies achieving a healthy, albeit delicate, balance between economic growth and investments in education and bulk infrastructure services can significantly reduce the problem of discouraged youth. The two countries are among the least associated with discouraged youth, despite having registered GDP less than US$83 billion. Their investments in education and public services however seem to make up for any reserved economic performance.
The data also underlines the criticality of the continent investing in vocational skills training and post-primary education. While the current youth cohort in Africa is the most educated ever, the continent’s huge stock of youth without formal education and with just primary education as their highest education attainment is driving youth disengagement. To curtail this trend, investments will have to be made in skills development, for example, vocational training programmes.
Besides underscoring the prominence of economic growth and underlying the criticality of matching economic growth with skills, the data debunks suggestions that African youth are not interested in farming or agriculture. Discouraged youth are, for example, most likely to relate to farming and agriculture as the most important problem facing their country. This proposes that far from being disinterested with farming, African youth care significantly about agriculture.
Borrowing evidence from late-late industrialising economies of Asia; it calls for interventions that enhance governance (land and water use laws in particular) as well productivity of the agriculture sector (through bulk infrastructure[1] investments) and reducing the distance to markets (access to credit, business management skills etc).
The challenges confronting African countries’ attempts to keep youth engaged with the labour market are not homogeneous. Countries like Morocco and Tunisia face unique challenges. Rapidly declining fertility rates have suppressed economic growth (eg GDP growth in Morocco averaged less than 1 percent). This has, in turn, increased youth vulnerability to disengaging from employment.
South Africa will soon find itself with the same problem, if the current trajectory remains unchanged. Although currently among the countries least associated with discouraged youth, lacklustre economic performance amidst gradually declining fertility rates motivate for upscaling investments in skills development and general economic growth.
Among the countries most associated with discouraged youth, Malawi, Guinea, Mali and Burkina Faso are particularly vulnerable. In all these countries, the need for large scale investments focussing in post primary education and vocational training together with investments in bulk infrastructure services are urgent and immediate. Ignoring this threatens to compromise the depth of state authority and ferment conflict.
This is particularly the case in Mali and Guinea which are also among the countries where youth most associate political instability or political violence as a prominent national problem. Such countries would benefit from, complimenting their interventions with investments in interventions that facilitate political stability.
In conclusion, the 2019 Mo Ibrahim forum highlighted being ‘devoid of (economic) prospects’ as the most urgent challenge confronting African youth. While the AfCFTA holds great potential for the continent, its success will not be automatic and will depend to the extent to which countries are able to create conditions that make it worthwhile for youth to remain productively engaged in society.
[1] Defined as public infrastructure services of which water, sewage and electricity are generated, collected, stored, purified, conveyed and disposed of, as is relevant, and which is connected to a reticulation system which in turn distributes services to and from end users.
