Youth unemployment in Africa: A developmental challenge

Prepared by Busi Mkhumbuzi and Thami Pooe, Tshimong

Youth unemployment in Africa has reached a tipping point: Africa’s generation of young people aged 15 to 24 is the largest in history. Governments across the continent face the challenge of providing young people with jobs and opportunities to safeguard their futures.

Tshimong is a youth development specialist working with young people in this age group across all nine provinces of South Africa. In 2018, we visited learners at Phumulani Secondary School in Katlehong, to assist with tertiary education applications. On visiting the school, the principal shared with us that the school only sends 10 out of 300 matriculants to university per year. In a country such as South Africa that does not have a systemised post-high school structure outside of university, the principal was essentially sharing that 290 learners are left vulnerable after 12 years of study.

Phumulani Secondary School is not a unique case. Broadly speaking, township and rural schools in South Africa, and the continent at large, are not resourced to provide quality education that can secure learners a job in a fast-changing, globalised environment.

Consequently, Africa’s majority now represents a danger signal for Africa, undermining the continent’s core developmental issue: political stability.

The history of instability in Africa associates high unemployment with the numerous instances of political upheaval on the continent. This ranges from the scourge of drug and crime-related violence in South Africa, to the contemporary revival of extremism through the activities of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQMI) in northern Nigeria and Al-Shabaab in the north-eastern parts of Africa. As a result, African youth are not only victims of unemployment but are also active participants in political instability.

According to Institute for Security Studies Author, Andrews Atta-Asamoah, there are two reasons for this. First, in their arduous search for resources, young people have fallen prey to criminal networks that operate to “take from” the privileged. Second, many are easily swayed into becoming foot soldiers for political figures who manipulate them into undermining political processes. Given the fact that unemployed youth have nothing to lose, the cost of their recruitment into dangerous activities is low, thereby increasing their propensity to contribute to violence, crime and conflict.

A 2005 Human Rights Watch study revealed that former West African combatants identified poverty and hopelessness as key reasons that made them vulnerable to participation in armed rebellion.

Beyond conflict, crime and violence, most African countries are seeing a decrease in youth democratic participation. A record low number of young people are voting in the elections. In South Africa, many young people talk about the extent to which they battle daily against abject poverty and traumatic struggle to find meaningful opportunities caused by poor educational standards, lack of tertiary education funding and lack of job opportunities, even for qualified graduates.

For the first time, we are starting to see evidence that what we have long regarded as youth apathy is in fact an example of how young people are opting out of a system that is failing to deliver on its promise. In many African countries, the promise of jobs is only election bait. Governments repeatedly vow, especially on the election trail, to create desperately needed jobs. But the promises are not met once the government is elected.

The premise of a functioning democracy is that it must serve the people who put it into power. Widespread hopelessness is so palpable now that young people will continue to opt out of democracy building.

The former South African statistician-general and now Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative consultant, Pali Lehohla, has correctly warned of a self-perpetuating crisis where youth unemployment, poverty and political instability are reinforcing one another.

There needs to be a fundamental change in thinking across all levels of society. As a company working in townships and rural communities, we have witnessed first-hand how the potential of hundreds of young people is going to waste in a country that cannot address the root causes of unemployment with urgency, determination and focus.

Our public-private partnerships facilitate the creation of tangible measures to help - from quality educational activities, social infrastructure to the creation of local opportunities - but more needs to be done because we are fooling ourselves if we believe that young people will continue to be stoical to authority in the face of crisis.

Africa’s destiny has never been more important. But that destiny will be determined by the continent’s ability to create meaningful opportunities for its majority.