Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8441193.stm
By Jenny Cuffe , BBC World Service. Wednesday, 6 January 2010
Excerpts:
.....men like 20-year-old Abdi find themselves back on the street with no employment and no hope for the future. He describes himself as a trained soldier and says he would be open to an offer from al-Shabab.
"I'll go and fight for them because what I'm looking for is money," he says. Al-Shabab, an Islamist group accused of links to al-Qaeda, is offering $600 (£374) a month. ....In October last year, 300 young men were recruited to fight for al-Shabab's enemy - Somalia's UN-backed transitional government.
Read more and your comments are most welcomed: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8441193.stm
Youth employment & Entrepreneurship
http://www.worldacademy.org/forum/youth-entrepreneurship
In Africa, there are also several programs that encourage entrepreneurship.
I welcome examples and success stories from Africa
++++++jf
Youth Entrepreneurship
Submitted by JCordeiro on Mon, 02/08/2010 - 09:19
- GEC 5: Youth employment & Entrepreneurship
Dear WAAS friends,
I just read this excellent report about youth entrepreneurship that could be one of the answers to youth unemployment.
Here is the overview:
Business, governments, and other sectors of society are increasingly recognising that supporting young entrepreneurs can be a highly effective way to reduce youth unemployment and stimulate growth in local communities. The question is, what is the most effective way to do this? For nearly 10 years Youth Business International has been helping to grow a network of independent in-country initiatives around the world that help young people to start their own business and create employment.
This report draws on best practice from the members of our network and other organisations in order to make cross-sectoral recommendations for creating a culture of youth enterprise. It is not intended to provide complete answers but to give a snapshot of what is working in different parts of the world to give young people a chance to become a successful entrepreneur.
Through sharing our insights, we aim to encourage governments and other organisations to give their support to young people who have a great business idea but lack the means, and the support, to set up their own enterprise.
This report is the first in our ‘Making Entrepreneurship Work’ series – providing recommendations for action and examples of best practice in order to promote youth entrepreneurship.
Five key messages
• It is an economic and social imperative to address the youth unemployment challenge – especially at a time of economic slowdown
• Boosting youth enterprise delivers substantial benefits both for the entrepreneur and for the wider economy and society
• Entrepreneurship is not for everybody, but for many it can provide a long-term route out of Poverty
• Making entrepreneurship work is not the responsibility of one sector alone; it requires dedicated actions from all sectors of the community
• Young people need to be encouraged and supported to take advantage of the opportunities of entrepreneurship Five key messages
• It is an economic and social imperative to address the youth unemployment challenge – especially at a time of economic slowdown
• Boosting youth enterprise delivers substantial benefits both For the complete report: http://www.youthbusiness.org/pdf/RecommendationsforAction.pdf
Futuristically yours,
José Cordeiro (www.cordeiro.org) Director, Venezuela Node, The Millennium Project (www.millennium-project.org)
A Cash-for-Work/CCC framework for international efforts?
An interesting, direct, response to youth unemployment in UDCs would be to expand the new and simple "Cash-for-Work" aid initiative by the United Nations in Haiti.
A news story from the Financial Times of January 19, 2010 is attached (below).
For all African UDCs this kind of model could be expanded along the lines of the Civilian Conservation Corps for work relief that operated successfully in the US from 1933 to 1942. About three million men (typically unemployed, unmarried males 18-20) lived in camps at the site of projects. They were provided food, housing, medical care, and a basic wage [at the time, $30/month] for needed public works and conservation projects. The CCC also was designed to provide the men with a training in marketable vocational skills and work experience in well-run organizations. During the Depression, in America, about 70% of the new recruits were malnourished and poorly clothed. The program had strong bipartisan support and is widely honored for its values and accomplishments.
It is difficult to imagine a simpler, more direct, and cost-effective approach to youth unemployment in Africa. The emphasis upon conservation and construction projects assures the kinds of measurable results that foreign aid agencies and foundations want to see. It would be straightforward to include humanitarian work (as in Haiti), support for NGOs, and public health projects like assistance to drill wells and assure access to clean drinking water across the continent. The projects also could strengthen shared humanitarian values.
There is an added wisdom for the WAAS to recommend a "Cash-for-Work" initiative as a new, broad, international approach: in poorer countries high youth unemployment predicts to political instability, increased violence (including terrorist recruitment), and precarious or failed states with long-term costs for UN peacekeeping operations. The Global 2025 forecast by the National Intelligence Council (US) specifically predicts such consequences for "youth bulge" poorer countries if their youth unemployment problem is not addressed more successfully.<1> For example Yemen, which has seen a resurgence of al-Qaeda operations, civic deterioration, and growing violence fits the prediction: it was a case where USAID did not make the connections between Global 2025 and its programs in time; somalia also underscores these effects. A simple Cash-for-Work/CCC formula, providing worthwhile work, food, shelter, health care, a subsistence wage, and vocational training for unemployed African youth, could be an inspired and timely formula with wide support.
Lloyd Etheredge
<1> Online at http://www.dni.gov/nic/NIC_home.html
-------------------------------
UN plans $40m ‘cash-for-work’ programme
By Andrew Jack and Harvey Morris in New Yor. Financial Times
Published: January 19 2010 21:26 | Last updated: January 19 2010 21:26
The United Nations will in the coming days begin distributing $40m in “cash-for-work” programmes to Haitians, in an effort to defuse the uncertain security situation in the country and provide income to those suffering in the wake of last week’s earthquake.
Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, told journalists on Tuesday that he had agreed with Barack Obama, the US president, to release funds rapidly to hire local young people for jobs including the removal of rubble, even as he indicated it could take two weeks to reach the estimated 1m people requiring help.
The initiative marks an effort to rapidly distribute money from UN agencies to local people while helping relief efforts and ensuring that security – which officials have described as “stable” despite anecdotal reports of looting – remains under control. It comes as the Security Council moved swiftly on Tuesday to authorise the deployment of 3,500 additional international peacekeepers and police to bolster the existing 9,000-strong force.
“I have been struck to see so many young people wandering around aimlessly,” said Mr Ban, describing his impressions during a brief trip to Haiti on Sunday. “[I am concerned about] how to provide more sense of hope to these people ... to absorb this workforce. We need people to clear the streets, and for reasons of security to keep them busy.”
UN officials said they had also finalised on Monday and Tuesday a new system of co-ordination with the US military to prevent the diversion of flights bringing supplies. He said the US made the final decision, but “we don’t think there has been any systematic prioritisation for US troops”.
He stressed that the US role was humanitarian, not peacekeeping, and that the US was also working to clear one of the ports in the capital rapidly in order to facilitate the arrival of ship-borne aid.
The US military on Tuesday deployed an additional 2,000 airborne troops to join the 1,000 already on the ground.
Mr Ban defended claims that the UN and other international efforts to help Haiti had been too slow, and emphasised intensifying efforts, saying: “I think we have managed the initial period very well. Within two weeks’ time we hope to reach the 1m people who need our help.”
“I am fully aware of some frustration, particularly by people on the ground,” he added. “We fully understand their frustrations. Please be a little patient. We will come to you and help as much as possible, as soon as possible.”
He stressed that compared with recent disasters such as the Asian tsunami, Cyclone Nargis in Burma or the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan province, China, the Haiti earthquake’s impact had been more destructive, devastating the government administration in the capital as well as destroying infrastructure and heavily disrupting operations of the UN and other international organisations within the country.
“This is a really unprecedented situation for the UN, the gravest single loss and tragedy in the 65-year history of our organisation.”
Cash for Work
Lloyd's suggestion to promote 'cash for work' as an employment program in many developing countries reinforces the presentation by Randall Wray during his GEC webcast and detailed in several of his papers on the GEC, e.g. Direct-Job-Creation and How to Implement True, Full Employment.
On February 9th, Rania Antonopoulous, a colleague of Randall Wray at the Levy Economic Institute, will be specifically discussing the application of cash for work programs in countries such as South Africa and Mexico. I hope you can join the discussion.
A Cash-for-Work/CCC framework for international efforts?
>.....release funds rapidly to hire local young people for jobs including the removal of rubble,.....
“I have been struck to see so many young people wandering around aimlessly,” said Mr Ban, describing his impressions during a brief trip to Haiti on Sunday.
Source: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/dc3904a8-0539-11df-a85e-00144feabdc0.html
I think the "cash for work" the approach will also bring greater social participation by the youths ..... instead of just waiting for aid to come and to watch the work being done by others.
I have an on-going program (similar in thinking) called "school fees for work" in Kenya and at a village where some parents pulled out their children from a primary school. A common reason is a lack of cash to pay for school fees because parents dont have a job.
"school fees for work" also solved our difficulty to decide which child would be sponsored. We tied each scholarship to 2 days per week of work by the parents or any person who would work at a farm to pay of the school fees of each child. While many parents welcomed the idea and opportunity, there were also some parents who did not like the idea (because they had to work !!. They argued that sponsorship should always be free). We are now sponsoring 2 children at 200 US$ per year to school. see http://www.globetree.org/africa/ndekero/rabbithouse.htm#activities
There is yet another approach called "food for work" and has been used on youths and women groups.
REQUEST:
If you have examples of "food for work", please tell us more about it.
Women and employment in Africa
+++FORWARDED MESSAGE FROM Marie Paul Dusingize <dusipaul@yahoo.fr>+++
(note: see google translation into English below.
Marie is a PhD student of Dr. Eleonora Masini. She is from Rwanda and is working on research in her country and in her region on women's poverty.
Women and employment in Africa: Cash for work, un futur de travailleur à la femme rurale.
En Afrique c’est difficile de trouver les données fiables sur l’emploi mais surtout dans l’agriculture, activité exercée en grande partie par les femmes. Les femmes fournissent l'épine dorsale de l'économie rurale dans une grande partie de l'Afrique subsaharienne. Environ 80 % de la main-d'oeuvre féminine économiquement active est employée dans l'agriculture, et les femmes constituent environ 47 % de la main-d'oeuvre agricole totale (Afrique Relance en ligne, La femme dans le développement en Afrique, no 11, Avril 1998). Cependant, malgré la reconnaissance croissante de la contribution des femmes dans ce domaine, il n’ y a pas une amélioration notable de l’accès des femmes aux ressources.
Selon la Commission Economique des Nations Unies pour l’Afrique (CEA), nombreuses sont les femmes, surtout en Afrique au Sud du Sahara, qui stagnent dans la pauvreté (moins 1$ par jour) voir (CEA, 8ème conférence régionale sur les femmes, Beijing + 15, 16-20 novembre 2009. http://www.genreenaction.net/IMG/pdf/rapport_complet.pdf).
Cette situation résulte du fait que les progrès contribuent à la croissance économique mais laissent intact la pauvreté, il reste toujours et beaucoup à faire pour un meilleur accès aux revenus, à la santé, à la sécurité, et au respect des droits humains.(CEA, idem.)
Par conséquent l’idée de Cash for work serait utile comme modèle dans une situation paradoxale, caractérisée d’une part par l’amélioration dans la participation dans les organes de prise des décisions et dans l’éducation, et d’autre part, par la pauvreté stagnante qui se féminise toujours de plus. Le cash for work pourrait renforcer les capacités des femmes pauvres et rurales. Celles-ci, même si elles travaillent beaucoup, leur futur mais, surtout leur vieillesse le passeront comme des chômeurs vue qu’elles travaillent dans des conditions informelles sans contrat en bonne et due forme ni la couverture sociale. Le cash for work serait un nouveau modèle à promouvoir pour réduire la pauvreté des femmes dans cette décennie de la femme africaine qui est soutenue par l’Union Africaine.( 2010-2020, Décennie africaine du genre : les femmes à l’assaut des politique, The Dakar Times, 08/01/2010 1. http://www.dakartimes.com/fr/articles/2010-01-08/533/2010-2020-decennie-africaine-du-genre-1-les-femmes-a-l-assaut-des-politiques
+++++Google machine translation into English+++++
(P.S: please send corrections in translation to jacky.foo@gmail.com)
Women and Employment in Africa: Cash for work, a future worker in rural women.
In Africa it is difficult to find reliable data on employment, but especially in agriculture, an activity carried on largely by women. Women provide the backbone of the rural economy in much of sub-Saharan Africa. About 80% of the female workforce is employed economically active in agriculture, and women constitute approximately 47% of the agricultural labor force (Africa Recovery Online, Women in Development in Africa No. 11, April 1998). However, despite the growing recognition of women's contribution in this area, it 's not there a noticeable improvement in women's access to resources.
According Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), many women, especially in Africa south of Sahara, languishing in poverty (less than $ 1 per day) see (CEA, 8th Regional Conference on Women Beijing + 15, November 16-20, 20,092. http://www.genreenaction.net/IMG/pdf/rapport_complet.pdf
,). This results from the fact that progress contributes to economic growth but leave intact the poverty, and it remains to be done for better access to income, health, safety, and respect for human rights. (CEA idem.)
Therefore the idea of cash for work would be useful as a model in a paradoxical situation, characterized in part by the improvement in participation in the organs of decision-making and education, and secondly, by stagnant poverty that still more feminized. The cash for work could strengthen the capacity of poor rural women. These, even if they work hard, but their future, especially their old age will increase as the unemployed for their work in informal contract without proper form or the social coverage. The cash for work is a new model to promote to reduce women's poverty in the decade of the African woman who is supported by the African Union. (2010-2020, African Decade of gender: women in the onslaught of political , The Dakar Times, 08/01/2010 1. http://www.dakartimes.com/fr/articles/2010-01-08/533/2010-2020-decennie-africaine-du-genre-1-les- Women al-assault-of-political
Paradox of low unemployment rates: Women in sub-Saharan Africa
+++FORWARDED MESSAGE FROM Marie Paul Dusingize <dusipaul@yahoo.fr>+++
(note: see google translation into English below).
Marie is a PhD student of Dr. Eleonora Masini. She is from Rwanda and is working on research in her country and in her region on women's poverty.
Le paradoxe du faible taux de chômage des femmes en Afrique subsaharienne
Selon le rapport du Bureau International du travail sur la tendance mondiale de l’emploi des femmes de mars 2008, en Afrique subsaharienne, le taux de chômage des femmes est faible. Cependant ce faible taux de chômage ne traduit pas une situation positive des femmes parce que la plus part des activités des femmes dans cette région sont liées à la pauvreté profonde qui envahit cette région. Si comme il s’agit de travailler pour survivre, les femmes n’ont pas beaucoup de choix et occupent souvent les travaux vulnérables. Ce type de travaux contribue à perpétuer la pauvreté parce qu’ils ne garantissent pas une productivité meilleure. Pour plus d’information consulter http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_091226.pdf
+++++Google machine translation into English+++++
(P.S: please send corrections in translation to jacky.foo@gmail.com)
The paradox of low unemployment rates of women in sub-Saharan Africa
According to the report of the International Working the global trend of female employment in March 2008, in sub-Saharan Africa, the unemployment rate for women is low. However this low unemployment rate does not reflect a positive situation for women because most of the women's activities in this region are related to the deep poverty that pervades the region. If it is like to work to survive, women had little choice and are often vulnerable work. Such work contributes to perpetuating poverty because they do not guarantee better productivity. For more information visit http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_091226.pdf
Unemployment and Social Unrest
Thank you, Jacky, for hosting this very significant news report on the linkage between unemployment and militant violence in Africa. Jasjit Singh has made the same observation regarding one of the root causes of social unrest and violence in developing countries. His thesis is that it is not poverty per se but rather the increasing gap between rising expectations and actual levels of poverty or development that generates frustration and prompts unemployed youth to join fundamentalist and other violent movements. Jasjit proposes to explore this theme more fully in the WAAS project Revolution in Human Affairs based on case studies in South Asia.
The Time Magazine article on the Making of a Mumbai Terrorist reported that the youth who participated in the Mumbai attacks on Nov 26, 2008 were motivated by similiar economic considerations. Recognition of this factor is most likely one of the important factors that prompted the Government of India to introduce the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in 2005 (recently renamed after Mahatma Gandhi) which provides the poorest families access to a minimum 100 days of work per annum. If humanitarian considerations are not sufficient to compel us to address the problem of chronic unemployment seriously, then the prospect of increasing violence provides additional incentives for societies to get very serious about this issue.
South Africa has 1.6 million discouraged workers
http://docs.iol.co.za/ILO
South Africa has 1.6 million discouraged workers who are unemployed but have given up searching for jobs.
Q: has education created more unemployed ?
Opinion:
Traditionally children help in their parents farm which provides food and shelter to the family. They learn from their parents from an early age to farm. Formal education in schools has disconnected this link and given the hope that other types of jobs with cash payment are available. After primary or secondary school, these children are no more used to working in the farm and they dont want to be farmers. They think they are educated and look for city jobs.
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Please comment ?