Yemisi Izuora.
The President of the African Development Bank, AfDB, Akinwumi Adesina has predicted that Africa will gain 10-20 per cent annual growth if the continent addresses the exploding youth unemployment.
The AfDB Group intends to create 25 million jobs to benefit 50 million youth over the next 10 years through skills development.
This vision will be implemented through the Presidential Youth Advisory Group (PYAG) that was inaugurated on the side-lines of the 6th EU-Africa Business Forum in Abidjan.
PYAG comprises nine members under the age of 40 who have made significant contributions to the creation of employment opportunities for African youth.
“This is a huge opportunity for Africa. If we fix the youth unemployment challenge, Africa will gain 10-20 per cent annual growth. That means Africa’s GDP will grow by $500 billion per year for the next 30 years. Africa’s per capita income will rise by 55 per cent every year to the year 2050,” said Adesina.
Adesina remarked that out of the 13 million youths that enter the labour market each year, only 3 million (about 33 per cent of African youth) are in wage employment, while the rest are underemployed or in vulnerable employment.
The annual gap of more than 8 million jobs is projected to get worse, with the number of youth expected to double to more than 800 million in the next decade.
“Africa has an unemployment crisis among its youth,” he stressed, noting that unless employment opportunities are created for them, Africa’s rapidly growing population of youths can give rise to serious social, economic, political and security challenges.
“Sixty-six million African youths earn less than $2 a day, less than the price of a hamburger,” the Bank President emphasised.
“Sixty-six million is 8 times the population of Switzerland, 6 times the population of Belgium, the same as that of the UK, France or Italy, and 80 per cent of Germany’s population,” he added.
Meanwhile the European Union is lending its support to the initiative as it joins African heads of state at the 5th African Union – European Union Summit in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire to discuss youth employment.
Under the central theme “Investing in youth for a sustainable future”, the President of the European Council, the President of the European Commission, the President of the African Union and the Chairperson of the African Union Commission are in attendance.
The two-day Summit held every three years in either Africa or Europe, take stock of the progress made in the implementation of commitments and provide political guidance for further work.
“Taking stock of the progress made since the Brussels Summit in 2014, African and European Leaders will be given the opportunity to provide political guidance in order to jointly address current and future challenges and to deepen their strategic partnership, launched in 2007 with the adoption of the Joint Africa-EU Strategy,” the Africa-EU Partnership said.
In addition, the leaders will discuss the future of AU-EU relations, and focus on investing in youth.
This is a key priority for the AU and the EU as 60 per cent of the African population is under the age of 25, the Africa-EU Partnership explained in a statement.