FORMER President Olusegun Obasanjo, Tuesday, raised the alarm that youth unemployment rate in Africa is one of the highest in the world, adding that African countries must urgently commit to lowering this rate through a combination of efforts including functional education, entrepreneurial training, provision of job opportunities and the enabling environment for investment and growth of small and medium-scale enterprises.

Obasanjo, who is the Chairman, Africa Progress Group, said this while delivering his speech at the public presentation of the 2020 APG Report.

He said that African countries should show more responsiveness to making their populations more of an asset than a burden.

His words: “For the avoidance of doubt, APG is not queuing behind the proposition for policies such as one child or two per family as we have in some regions of the world. Our position is rested on the belief that population, large or small, can be harnessed as asset rather than a burden. Besides, the variability in socio-cultural positions on family planning by different African communities should be respected but properly managed. Africa’s growing population if well managed will yield huge dividends for national and regional development.”

“In the report, we have provided over 150 strategic options for African countries in all sectors in managing their populations ranging from providing quality education for all, through investment in food and nutrition security, health security, environmental security, sustainable housing for all, to entrepreneurship and employment security.

“Youth unemployment rate in Africa is one of the highest in the world. African countries must urgently commit to lowering this rate through a combination of efforts including functional education, entrepreneurial training, and provision of job opportunities and the enabling environment for investment and growth of small and medium-scale enterprises.

“The sensitive matter of population control in Africa should be approached in a socio-culturally contextual manner while recognising that uncontrolled population without appropriate safety nets for making the growing population live healthy and productive lives are inimical to national development. African governments should apply global best practices as it suits their socio-cultural sensitivities.

The important message conveyed by APG is to ensure that the growing population is served the best regime of such enablers as education, health, food and nutrition security, housing, employment and security of lives and property to make the population an asset rather than a burden.

“The attention paid to education by a country is, in large part, a reflection of its responsiveness to making its growing population an asset. Education is seen as the antidote to poverty and ignorance and the direct and indirect key to unlocking human and material resources of a nation.

It can be likened to the hub around which other components of development revolve, like spokes on a wheel. An African country with a huge, educated population (with low illiteracy rate) has a higher chance of making its population an asset for development than one that is populated with persons with high proportion of illiterates.

“Productive investment in the health of the citizenry is a major pathway to responsive population management. A nation of healthy people is a denotation that such people will have physical and mental capabilities to contribute to the growth and development of their communities. The clichés that, a nation with unhealthy citizens is a dead nation and that health is wealth hold true in this context.

Without good health, the ability to work productively is diminished and the opportunities for earning are dimmed. If African countries provide health security for the citizenry, manifold benefits accrue. Healthy populations live longer and are more productive, hence contributing to economic development. Weak health systems not only cost lives but pose some of the greatest risks to the economy.

“An African country that is food secure even with the ever-dynamic climatic conditions, incessant growth of the population, increase in the prices of foods and other environmental factors has a higher chance of making its population an asset for development. Food security is a strong economic variable as the cost of hunger and malnutrition is reflected in low productivity, illnesses, deaths, low cognitive development and learning achievement.”

Source: The Vanguard newspaper