WEST AFRICA: Youth unemployment threatens regional stability

Photo: IRIN

No jobs, no prospects in Liberia where youthful rebels waged war for 14 years

DAKAR, 2 December 2005 (IRIN) - In a region where 65 percent of the population is less than 30 years old, the lack of jobs is increasingly leaving West African youth with only two options - violence or migration, according to a UN report. “Most people aged under 30 have absolutely no prospects, which is unacceptable,” the UN special envoy to West Africa Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah said at a news conference. “Youth unemployment threatens the security and stability of the region.” Recent scenes of waves of desperate mainly West African youngsters trying to storm barbed wire fences in Morocco to get to jobs in Europe had shocked the world, he said. And in the arc of conflict-ridden West African nations from Guinea-Bissau to Cote d’Ivoire, jobless youths were continuing to sign up as militia fighters because combat was the only source of income available to them. “We are sounding the alarm,” Ould-Abdallah said at the launch of a report on youth unemployment by the United Nations Office for West Africa (UNOWA), released on the eve of this weekend’s France-Africa summit in Mali, which will also focus on the issue. “There is nothing here for most youngsters,” Moustapha Diop, who heads Students Affairs at Dakar University told IRIN. “There are more and more students - 50,000 this year against 46,000 the year before - but once they graduate there are few jobs, they have to fight for professional training slots, and when they do find jobs the salaries are very low.” “Most are aware they’ll probably be out of work for several years,” he added. “And it’s even worse for female graduates.” One 25-year-old medicine student now in fifth year, Isabelle Pine, laughed at the mere idea of working in Senegal once she qualified. Pine, whose sister works as a maid to put her through university, said: “I’d rather go work in Europe, the wages are too low here. Even our professor has to work both in the public and private sector to make ends meet.” Although there are no statistics available on joblessness across West Africa, in some countries, such as Sierra Leone, more than 50 percent of young people lack proper work. With unemployment and desperation on the rise, the UNOWA report warned that jobless youths risked fuelling conflict in countries at war while undermining stability and progress in those at peace. “The future of the entire region is threatened by the growing numbers of youths who lack prospects of ever being able to work for a reasonable living,” it said. It was a tragedy that many young people were placing all their hopes in stowing away in the undercarriage of a plane or in a truck container, to escape from Africa. And because of demographic trends, urgent action was needed. Demographic and urbanisation trends are the highest in recorded history anywhere, with 430 million people expected to be living in West Africa in 2020, or an increase of over 100 million people in 15 years. And the rural exodus - in Burkina Faso 93 percent of migrants to cities are aged under 35 - risked placing extra pressure on agricultural production. Regional development and stability “will be undermined for as long as current demographic trends, economic policies and governance practices keep tens of millions of youth without jobs and in despair of their future,” the report said. It offers 26 proposals on creating employment for unskilled youths while providing jobs for qualified graduates. These include investing in infrastructure and public works, involving private enterprise, improving management and transparency and helping apprenticeship schemes and self-employment programmes.