100million Youth In Danger Of Being Unemployed By 2030 — African Devt Bank

June 14, 2019

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At least 100million youth who would be joining the labour market are in danger of being jobless and unemployed by 2030 except the current economic trend is turned around.

This is according to the African Development Bank (AfDB) in its African Economic Outlook report. The bank predicted that most of the jobs will be generated by the informal sector where “productivity and wages are low and work is insecure, making the eradication of extreme poverty by 2030 a difficult task”.

To combat this, the state secretariat for Economic Affairs of the Government of the Swiss Confederation (SECO) and the bank signed two agreements to fund African initiatives.

SECO contributed three million Swiss francs (CHF) to the Entrepreneurship Lab (E-Lab) for innovative young entrepreneurs and 200,000CHF to the Urban & Municipal Development Fund for Africa (UMDF), which helps African cities plan and manage urban growth and climate-resilient development.

“These days it’s important that partners work together to put talents together in a complementary fashion. These are two areas which are forward-leaning and positive for the African continent,” said Raymund Furrer, bank governor for Switzerland, who signed on behalf of SECO at the Sipopo Conference Centre in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea.

Bajabulile Swazi Tshabalala, AfDB’s vice president for finance signed on behalf of the bank.

“Our partnership goes beyond the consistent and strong support of the two main windows of the Bank Group … Let me then take this opportunity to thank Switzerland for these two very valuable contributions, but also, for being a long-standing partner of the Bank Group,” Tshabalala said.