Youth (un)employment – how can Governments Leverage Food Systems to solve the current Crisis?

By Davis Muthini

“We are sitting on a keg of gunpowder. There is no country in Africa where the youth are not angry. If no adequate attention is paid to the needs of the youth in Africa, autumn will turn into winter. It will be hideous for all of us.” This is a statement by the former President of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo, following the recent deadly demonstrations in Kenya, led by the young people under the umbrella of ‘GenZ’. Though localised in Kenya, the demonstrations have sent a wave of unease across the continent. Although the ‘GenZ’ grievances centred on a raft of wide-ranging tax proposals in Kenya’s 2024/25 Finance bill, the issues go beyond it and have been simmering for months if not years. The bill was only the spark that lit the fire.

Africa has the youngest population globally. According to the 2024 World Population Prospects data, over 60% of Sub-Saharan Africa’s population is aged below 24 years, compared to a global average of 40%. Close to 50 million young people are entering working age every 5 years in Sub-Saharan Africa and this number is growing by 3% every year. That equates to 10 million every year against only 3 million jobs created, leaving a deficit of 7 million jobs annually. Further, the population growth rate is still high (above 3%), more so in the poorest countries where the economies offer bleak prospects for health, education, and economic productivity. The number of people in working age in the continent is expected to double by 2050.

In a recent book by researchers at the Internal Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), it is demonstrated that Africa’s youth bulge is not unique, except that it is delayed. What is unique is the pattern of structural change. Whereas other continents reaped economic gains from having a youthful population in the past, Africa’s young population is now a huge risk of an implosion. The continent is not creating enough work opportunities for the young population to contribute to economic growth. Africa’s impending demographic dividend may become a demographic burden as the number of unemployed (dependant) persons exceeds the number of employed.

An AfDB Africa Economic Brief released in 2017 affirms that although several African countries have experienced rapid economic growth in the past 2000 era, this “growth has been jobless”. Unlike other developed countries, and particularly the widely quoted East Asia development models, economic growth in Africa has not been accompanied by the structural transformation, which creates economic opportunities in industry to absorb the labour off-loaded from agriculture. Further, although rapid urbanization and population growth creates increasing demand for food and food products, the gap is currently plugged by imports. Productivity has stagnated for decades and rendered food production in the continent uncompetitive. Importing food and food products costs the continent over 40 billion annually. This implies that the continent outsources jobs to produce food, while its youth languish in joblessness.

Aside from the external factors enumerated before, African youth have either self-excluded themselves of been pushed out of the agriculture sector due to a myriad of factors. It is argued often that agricultural work is not desirable to the youth, and that majority desire to work in off farm jobs in urban areas, even with emerging opportunities in high value commercial crops. However, opportunities in urban areas are limited. Agriculture is and will continue to be the leading employer in the continent for the foreseeable future.
The urgency of the current crisis requires quick but sustainable mitigation actions. First, there is a need for a renewed focus on agricultural transformation, which means raising farm productivity, through increased use of modern farming technologies (improved seeds, chemical fertilizers, and machinery). Agricultural transformation has the potential to yield broad economic benefits and employment creation due to the extensive backward and forward linkages and high job multiplier effects. Field experience shows that young people are happy to take up on-farm opportunities in value chains that have a short turn around time. These include short term crops such as chili, tomatoes, among other commercial vegetables, as well as small ruminants and poultry. For young people to get involved governments will have to solve binding systemic constraints such as the lack access to land and financial capital to start agribusiness enterprises. Programs such as Tanzania’s “Building a Better Tomorrow” focus on such constraints, although there is lack of adequate data and evidence to inform the design of such interventions effectively.
An important question is how to make agriculture more attractive and productive to the youth first, while also transforming the entire economic sector to create opportunities off-farm. Partly, young people shun farming because of the drudgery of manual work involved, stemming from the lack of mechanization and technology transfer in African agriculture. Considering tractors alone, the number per 1000 ha of land in many sub-Saharan Africa countries has stalled at less than 2, while the number in developed countries is more than 30. Agricultural mechanization and technology transfer can create millions of jobs for young people as technicians and operators, while also attracting more youth farmers.

Inclusive development requires structural transformation, where a strong agri-trade (marketing systems) and agro-industrialization and connected services such as preservation, packaging, distribution and trading activities absorbs surplus production and labour. To create jobs in the food sector, existing businesses/enterprises must expand, and new ones set up. However, the private sector in most countries is faced with a difficult investment environment characterised by excessive regulation, thus high transaction costs, and an unpredictable policy environment. The World Bank’s Enabling the Business of Agriculture (EBA) report ranks 14 Sub-Saharan African countries among the 20 lowest-scoring countries. Many of these countries either lack laws that facilitate investment or have enacted regulations that make it harder to obtain high-quality farming inputs and to sell produce, therefore discouraging formal long-term investment and contributing to unemployment. African governments should introduce regulatory and policy reforms to reduce the transaction costs of farmers and businesses. Interventions such as public private partnership investments to unlock infrastructure bottlenecks and fiscal incentives can also cushion nascent investors.

* The writer, Davis Muthini, is a Policy Analyst at AGRA.