Youth unemployment must be given priority– Adesina tells African leaders

The President of African Development Bank (AfDB), Dr Akinwumi Adesina says youth unemployment must be given top priority by leaders of various countries.

Adesina said this during the public presentation of African Economic Outlook 2020 in Abidjan on Thursday.

He explained that with 12 million graduates entering the labour market each year and only three million of them getting jobs was worrisome.

He said that “the mountain of youth unemployment is rising annually.

“Given the fast pace of changes, driven by the 4th industrial revolution from artificial intelligence, to robotics, machine learning, quantum computing.

“Africa must invest more in re-directing and re-skilling its labour force, and especially the youth, to effectively participate.

“The youth must be also prepared for the jobs of the future not the jobs of the past.

“Especially critical, is training in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The Bank is already working on this, with our support to build scientific centers of excellence, such as the African universities of science and technology – all part of the Mandela Institute of Science and Technology.

“We have invested in the Kigali Institute for Science and Technology that is providing world-class training in ICT at the Masters level in collaboration with the Carnegie Mellon University” he disclosed.

Adesina said as part of the bank’s Jobs for Youth in Africa strategy, AfDB inaugurated the Coding for Employment Programme, designed to develop young digital entrepreneurs.

He said the bank was planjing to develop 130 centers of innovation over the next five years to help create nine million direct and indirect jobs.

He stated that the experience of the bank so far from ongoing programmes in Rwanda, Nigeria, Kenya and Senegal had been impactful.

According to him, some 2,000 youth which 46 per cent were women were trained in just three months, between March and June 2019.

“Without any doubt, there is need to expand financing for education at all levels, primary, secondary and tertiary.

“The educational system must adequately prepare the youth for the labour market. Priority must be placed on improving access to vocational skills training.

“And there is also need to reducing the mismatch between training and needs of the labour market, and providing greater incentives for the private sector to support young people with on-the-job training opportunities, as well as entrepreneurship” (NAN)