The President of the African Development Bank Group (AFDB), Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, has inaugurated the Presidential Youth Advisory Group ( PYAG) to help actualize its plans of creating jobs for African youths.
Through the ‘Job for Youth in Africa Initiative’, the Bank aims at creating 25 million jobs and impacting 50 million youths over the next 10 years by equipping them with the right skills to get decent and meaningful jobs.
Inaugurating the Advisory Group in Abidjan on Monday, Dr. Adesina said, “this is a huge opportunity for Africa. If we fix the youth unemployment challenge, Africa will gain 10 – 20 % annual growth. That means Africa’ s GDP will grow by 500 million dollars per year for the next 30 years. Africa’s per capita income will rise by 55 % every year to the year 2050.”
He described the youths as Africa’s greatest asset, lamenting that out of 13 million youths that enter the labour market each year, only 3 million (about 33% of African youths) are in wage employment while the rest are underemployed or in vulnerable employment.
Dr. Adesina noted further, ” the annual gap of more than 8 million jobs is going to worsen, with the number of youths expected to double to more than 800 million in the next decades.”
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He decried the fact that Africa’s youths though strong and dynamic cross the desert and the Mediterranean Sea because they do not find decent jobs in Africa. “Graduates are wandering in the streets jobless. The low level of employment opportunities is also fueling violence and extremism in Africa. 40% of African youths join gangs or terrorist groups because of limited opportunities in their countries,” he said.
Stressing that Africa has an unemployment crisis among its youths, the AFDB President said unless employment opportunities were created for them, Africa’s rapidly growing population of youths can give rise to serious social, economic, political and security challenges.
According to Dr. Adesina, “sixty six million African youths earn less than 2 dollars a day, less than the price of a hamburger. Sixty six million is eight times the size of Switzerland, six times the size of Belgium, the same six as UK, France and Italy, and 80% of Germany’s population.”
The Presidential Youth Advisory Group comprises nine members under the age of 40 who have contributed significantly to the creation of employment opportunities for African youths.
They are drawn from Tanzania, Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, U.S.A, Rwanda and Zambia.
Explaining the reason for the setting up of group, Dr. Adesina said, “we recognise the enormous amount of energy, creative and innovative thinking and entrepreneurial excellence that many of our youths bring to the table. For this reason, the Bank must ensure that it is well advised by cutting – edge youth representatives on its policy, actions and programmes for the benefit of Africa’s youth.”
