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Africa’s Youth Dividend; Fact or Farce

Africa’s Youth Dividend; Fact or Farce. 20 March 2019 Conference of African Diplomatic Academies, Universities and Research Institutes in Pretoria DIRCO Pretoria South Africa. Outline. What is mean by Youth Dividend How does it happen What are the mitigating factors

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Africa’s Youth Dividend; Fact or Farce

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  1. Africa’s Youth Dividend; Fact or Farce 20 March 2019 Conference of African Diplomatic Academies, Universities and Research Institutes in Pretoria DIRCO Pretoria South Africa

  2. Outline • What is mean by Youth Dividend • How does it happen • What are the mitigating factors • HSRC Youth project, why this study? • What did we find - excerpts?

  3. Demographic dividend, what does it mean? • Demographic dividend refers to the growth in an economy emanating from a change in the age structure of a country’s population (UNPF). It is a period usually characterised by low fertility and mortality rates (Ross, 2004)

  4. Demographic dividend, underlying assumptions < 15 15 - 64 65+

  5. Demographic dividend – How does it happen? 4 key channels

  6. Demographic dividend – mitigating factors

  7. The AISA Youth Study – why such a study • “Entry-Points for Utilizing the Demographic Dividend in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Examination of the Dynamics of Youth Participation in Local and National Socio-Economic Transformation Processes” • Africa’s youth bulge, youngest population, prevalence of poverty and unemployment on the continent, what is required to realise the youth dividend? • What is the status quo of these entry points for realising a youth dividend in Africa • Do the youth have a voice in socio-economic transformation that impinge on their development? • Ghana, Zambia, Kenya, Botswana, Cote D’Ivoire &, Tanzania, sequential exploratory study, approximately 1200 youth in six countries.

  8. What we found - challenges • Well-crafted national youth policies - implementation a big challenge • High levels of youth unemployment (65% average) - narrow production structure. • There were very few avenues or opportunities for start-up funding for entrepreneurship initiatives, linked to technical assistance to support income earning activities of the youth. Only a few existed mostly established by international NGOs and to a much lesser extent government. • The quality of education and its infrastructure, skills mismatch, • Health service delivery and infrastructure had enormous room for improvement. • Policy uncertainty and incoherence, poor institutional quality, corruption, red tape and deficits in good governance and leadership emerged as significant challenges in each of these six countries. • There were barely any platforms for youth advocacy that served as channels through which the youth could make their voices heard. The few that existed were established by NGOs rather than the governments in these countries.

  9. What we found - opportunities

  10. Conclusion – more questions than answers • A paradigm shift needed in our perspective to addressing the youth bulge challenge • 4IR has already began, highly disruptive – loads of retrenchments foreseen due to rapid technological progress • We haven’t yet solved our present labour challenges how much more the “future of work”, what are the implications for our youth?

  11. What is the way forward? Lets discuss

  12. Thank YouDr Emmanuel SekyereChief Research SpecialistHuman Science Research Councilwww.hsrc.ac.za

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