Putting Young Africans to Work - Addressing Africa's Youth Unemployment Crisis - A Study Report

Putting Young Africans to Work: Addressing Africa’s youth unemployment crisis draws on a series of Dialogues held in May 2011 with the governments of Zambia, Mozambique and Swaziland. The Dialogues were convened by The Brenthurst Foundation and comprised distinguished experts from the United States, Costa Rica, Argentina, the Ivory Coast and South Africa, all of whom contributed to this volume. With diverse backgrounds in government, business, policy implementation and academia, each expert brings a unique perspective to bear on the pressing issue of youth unemployment in Africa. Their contributions range from detailed entrepreneurial-led solutions, examples of best practice and initiatives from Latin America, technical proposals drawn from recent African experiences, and global trends in unemployment, economic growth and competitiveness. There is some variance in their respective observations and interpretations of the same socio economic data from Africa and abroad. Nevertheless, across all the chapters there is a common emphasis on the need for governments to reduce the costs of formalisation for businesses and workers alike. This requires creating an environment in which labour is more productive and opportunities for innovation and growth are created - largely by government setting the right conditions and then getting out of the way. It is business, not government, that will put young Africans to work in sufficient numbers to turn the continent’s population time bomb into a demographic boon.