In 2012, the African Union (AU) set a goal of reducing youth and women unemployment on the continent by 2% annually between 2012 and 2022. In essence, AU member countries committed to creating 8 million new jobs annually during the next decade.
This year marks the end of that decade, and little has changed on the ground.
Indeed, according to the International Labour Organization's 2019 World Employment and Social Outlook Trends report, Africa continues to have the highest rate of youth unemployment in the world.
Data from the Afrobarometer Network – a partnership platform bringing together researchers surveying democracy, governance, and society – as well as UNESCO appears to similarly suggest that a significant number of young people in the region do not have the same opportunity to complete their education and/or get a decent job, particularly women and girls in rural areas.
Education provides the key for young people to enter the labour market and become financially independent while contributing to their personal well-being and that of their communities as a whole.
As a 2011 study of WHO global maternal and perinatal health data, for example, shows, there could be a correlation between the level of education that a woman achieves and her risk of dying from pregnancy-related causes.
Promoting education has therefore the potential to be an effective tool for catalyzing social and economic change in Africa.
And several UN programmes in the continent focus on boosting access to quality education, including what UNICEF does in Mozambique on primary schools and a UNHCR initiative that supports refugees in Tanzania.
Activities that provide access to quality education can also be leveraged to provide support on other issues, such as food security. That is the case for initiatives to provide healthy and nutritious meals to primary school children.
Source-Youth News
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