Youth represent 60 per cent of Africa’s unemployed labour force, Africa report says

Presently, 40 million of Africa’s youths are unemployed and this represents 60 per cent of the continent’s unemployed active labour force, the African Economic Outlook 2012, released on 31^st May 2012.  

The report says of these 40 million youths, 22 million have given up on finding a job, many of them women.

 “Creating productive employment for Africa’s rapidly growing young population is an immense challenge but also the key to future prosperity”, the authors say in the foreword.

Co-written by the African Development Bank, the OECD Development Centre, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the report says youth are an opportunity for future economic growth.

Between 2000 and 2008, despite world-topping economic growth rates, and a better educated youth, Africa created only 16 million jobs for young people aged between 15 and 24.

“The continent is experiencing jobless growth,” said Mthuli Ncube, Chief Economist and Vice-President of the African Development Bank (AfDB). “That is an unacceptable reality on a continent with such an impressive pool of youth, talent and creativity”.

The report argues youth unemployment figures will increase unless Africa moves swiftly to make youth employment a priority, turning its human capital into economic opportunity. On the other hand, youths can present a significant threat to social cohesion and political stability if they do not secure decent living conditions.

One in four sub-Saharan Africans goes hungry every day – UNDP report

A report by United Nations Development Programme says one in four sub-Saharan Africans, about 214 million people put together, goes hungry every day and warns that countries in the region cannot sustain current levels of economic growth without reaching out to their most marginalized inhabitants.

The UNDP Africa Human Development Report 2012:Towards a Food Secure Future, released on Tuesday, says “15 million of these vulnerable people live in the drought-struck, semi-arid belt of Sahel, which stretches across West and Central Africa. There, malnutrition is threatening the lives of one million children”.

The report also states that more than a million children in the Sahel region are at risk of dying because they don't have enough to eat

Many sub-Saharan African countries have Gini index measures between 0.35 and 0.6. The Gini index is a measure of income inequality used by some economists. A score of “1” on the index indicates perfect inequality (hypothetically all of the wealth is concentrated). A score of “0” indicates perfect equality (hypothetically, all wealth is shared equally among the population).

Niger, for example, has a Gini index of about 0.35, Mali has a Gini coefficient of about 0.33 and Mauritania has an income inequality level of about 0.41. All three countries are affected by the current hunger crisis in the Sahel.

Gambia’s Human Development Index Ranking Drops

By Lamin Jahateh, The Gambian Banker, Banjul The UNDP’s 2010 Global Human Development Report 2010 has placed The Gambia 151 out of 169 countries ranked in its Human Development Index. The latest ranking means the country has dropped by one per cent from its 2009 ranking. The Human Development Index (HDI) measures a country’s average achievements in three basic aspects of human development. These are health, education and income. The HDI ranking is part of the UNDP’s Global Human Development Report 2010 on the theme ‘The Real Wealth of Nations: Pathways to Human Development’. It was launched by the Vice President, Dr Aja Isatou Njie-Saidy on Wednesday at the Kairaba Beach Hotel.   The 2010 HDR is the 20th anniversary of the edition.  The report was launched at global level by the UNDP Administrator Helen Clark on 4th November 2010. The Gambia is ranked below many countries in the region including Ghana (130), Benin (134), Nigeria (142), Senegal (144), and above some countries such as Sierra Leone (158), Mali (160) and Liberia (162). The HDI was introduced as an alternative to conventional measures of national development, such as level of income and the rate of economic growth.   The HDI was created to emphasize that people and their capabilities should be the ultimate criteria for assessing the development of a country, not economic growth alone. In her launching statement, the Vice President of The Gambia, Dr Isatou  Njie-Saidy, said:  “An analysis using the gender inequality index, as stated in the 2010 report, noted that investments in girls and women to have equal educational and employment opportunities, access to health services, participation in decision-making at all levels, is a catalyst to a nation’s human development given its multiplier effects.” Against this backdrop, she said, The Gambia is poised to achieving universal primary education by 2015 “as parity was attained at this level as early as 2003”.  “The Net Enrolment Ratio rose from a low of 45 per cent between 1991/1992 to about 75 per cent in 2008/2009,” she added. On health, the Vice President said that some significant progress have been made focusing on the three health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)  4, 5, and 6 and relevant targets such as child and maternal mortality, and morbidity; HIV/AIDs; and Malaria reduction. She continued: “Overall, there has been considerable achievement in child survival as infant mortality rate according to national census dropped from 217 per 1000 in 1973 to 75 per 1000 live births in 2003.  Maternal mortality also declined from 1050 per 100,000 in 1990 to 730 per 100,000 in 2001 and 556 per 100,000 live births in 2006. On the other hand, the prevalence of HIV infection dropped from 2.8 per cent in 2006 to 1.4 per cent in 2007, whereas, HIV 2 dropped from 0.9 in 2006 to 0.5 per cent in 2007 receptively. On malaria, recent data from the six sentinel sites showed that the incidence of malaria has been declining in the country.  “The number of under-five year old children sleeping under insecticide treaded bed nets has increased from 15 per cent in 2000 to 49 per cent in year 2006,” she said. The HDR 2010 adopted the holistic approach by using a variety of information related to different aspects of human life, concentrating on what remains to be done, and focusing on key priorities such as climate change, mortality and morbidity, poverty and deprivation, as well as inequality and insecurity, with room to accommodate new concerns and considerations including forecasts of the natural levels of the Human Development Index. Janis James, who spoke on behalf of the UNDP resident coordinator, Ms Chinwe Dike, and the Vice Chancellor of the University of The Gambia, also spoke at length about the report and its significance.