The Brussels Development Briefing no. 48 on “Strengthening rural livelihoods in the face of rapid urbanisation in Africa” took place on 20th March 2017 from 14:00 to 18:00, at the ACP Secretariat (Avenue Georges Henri 451, 1200 Brussels, Room C). This Briefing was co-organised by CTA, BMZ/GIZ, the ACP Secretariat, European Commission (DG DEVCO) and Concord
Brussels Briefing 48: Edson Mpyisi "Agri-Business-Led Employment for Youth in African Agriculture: new opportunities"
1. ENABLE Youth
Agribusiness to Empower and Employ
Africa’s Youth
Edson MPYISI
Coordinator, ENABLE Youth
African Development Bank Group
2. 50%
65%
40%
Africa: The Young Continent
420 million “youth” in Africa
(15-35 years old)
Over 65% are under the age of 35
50% are under 25 years
Of over 1 billion Africans today,
4. Why Africa’s Youth Unemployment Challenge?
It is DIFFICULT TO
CONNECT skilled youth to
employers
• In Africa, the gap between wage jobs and labor market participants widens
by ~8 million each year
• Policy challenges such as lack of access to credit and inflexible labor
markets impede job creation and hiring of young workers
• Two-thirds of African youth do not have any secondary education, and
those who do are often unprepared for the workforce due to a lack of
practical training. 61.4% youth in Sub Saharan Africa lack the level of
education expected to make them productive on the job
• Education policies do not incentivize demand-driven curricula or support
internship and apprenticeship opportunities
• Employers cite costs and challenges of identifying talent as a key bottleneck
to growth
• There is a mismatch between skills supplied and abilities demanded by
employers
• Youth have low awareness of opportunities and few networks to access
them
Challenge
There are NOT ENOUGH
JOBS for Africa’s working-
age population
Many YOUTH DO NOT
HAVE SKILLS demanded
by employers
DEMAND
SUPPLY
LINKAGES
Description
5. Jobs for Youth in Africa (JfYA) Strategy
Flagship programs Description
provide youth with capital, skills training and mentorship to launch
agriculture-based micro enterprises
introduce digital literacy, logical thinking, and complex problem-
solving curricula in secondary schools
develop premier coding academies and match graduates directly with
ICT employers.
Rural Microenterprise
ENABLE Youth
Agro-industrialization
Pipeline
Skills Enhancement
Zones
Computational Thinking
Coding Institutes
develop a pipeline of skilled labor for agro-industrial companies.
Agriculture
Industrial-
ization
ICT
help young African men and women incubate new larger scale agri-businesses
and support them in accessing financing for growth of these businesses.
develop a skilled workforce aligned to employer needs by creating
demand-led training and job placement programs within industrial
clusters.
6. ENABLE Youth: Agribusiness to empower and employ Africa’s youth
USD 15 billion to support enterprise
and job creation for youth and women
Investing in 30 African
countries*
1.50 million
agribusiness jobs in
the next 5 years
300,000 agribusiness
enterprises to be created
in Africa
10,000 unemployed graduates
(50% women)
trained and financially
empowered in each country
ENABLING
ENVIRONMENT
Policy to enable
decent employment
Mindset/Attitude of
agriculture as a viable
business
AGRIBUSINESS
INCUBATION
Training along
agricultural value
chain and business
development; and
attachment/
mentorship
FINANCING
Crowd in private
investment and
commercial lending
Deploy risk sharing
mechanisms
Target Intervention
Need to leverage
USD 0.5 billion
per country
7. Job Opportunities Along Agricultural Value Chains
Input
Industry
Primary
Production
First Level
Processing
Second Level
Processing
Distribution
and
Marketing
• Input providers
• Agro dealers
• Mechanization,
Equipment
supply/hiring
• Etc…
• Modern farm
clusters
• Green houses
• Livestock
• Etc…
• Aggregation
centers
• Cold storage,
ripening
chambers
• Warehousing
• Primary
processing hubs,
• SME value
addition
• Etc…
• Industrial
processing
• Quality control
• Machinery for
agro-processing
• Etc…
• Logistics &
transport
• Marketing
• Packaging &
branding
• E-Commerce
platforms for
agro & food
products
• Wholesale and
retail services
• Etc…
8. Trade
and exports
Commodity Products
Improve the Agricultural Value Chain
Farmers Agro
Dealers
Seed
companies
Fertilizer
companies
Agro
processors
Industrial
manufacturers
Public Goods support:
Roads, Irrigation, R&D, Storage, Price Stabilization, etc.
Seasonal
Financing
Term
Financing
• De-risk the financial value chain
• Unlock commercial financing for agriculture
• AFDB to support
RMCs to setup RSF
• RSF to leverage up
to 10x
• Systemic change in
bank financing for
agriculture
• Finance for growth
of Agribusiness
• Financing
agriculture as a
business/ENABLE
Youth
Commodity and Agricultural Financing Value Chains
Risk sharing mechanism for increased agriculture finance
Appropriate Risk Sharing Instruments along the Agricultural Value Chain
Guarantees
Interest
rebates
Insurance
Technical
Assistance
9. Successful Agripreneur from DRC!
9
Noel Mulinganya
• Youth Agripreneur
• High quality cassava flour
• From 900Kg – 14 tonnes/ week
• From $600 to $10,000/ week
10. ENABLE Progress to Date…
Over 30 countries have expressed interest to the Bank
Approved ENABLE Projects
USD 370 million
DRC, Nigeria, Sudan
Approved ENABLE Components
USD 150 million approved
Cameroon, Malawi, Zambia
ENABLE Under Preparation
15 countries for 2017 and 2018
Africa is the most youthful continent on the planet. Its youth are classified as those between the ages of 15 and 35. This category of people currently make up 40% of the continent’s population.
Africa has the world’s youngest and fastest growing population. Over 65% are below 35 years, 50% are below 25 years and 40% are below 15 years of age.
By 2050, it is expected that 1.7 billion people will be living on the continent.
Whereas the proportion of young people is projected to decline worldwide, it is also the only region in the world where the rural population will still be growing.
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Africa’s rapidly growing youth population could be one of its greatest assets. As at 2015, there were approximately 406 million Africans between the age of 15 and 34.
It is expected that in the next 10 years, this demography will increase by at least 25% to half a billion young people by 2025
Today, 35% of Africa’s youth, amounting to 143 million people, are either underemployed, unemployed or inactive. By 2025, there will be 181 million young people without stable employment.
Over the next 10 years it is expected that 106 million youth will enter the job market.
If harnessed properly, a growing working age population could support increased productivity and stronger economic growth. However…
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There are three types of interconnected challenges that contribute to youth unemployment
On the demand side, there are not enough jobs for Africa’s working-age population. Each year, there are at least 11 million new young entrants into the labour market compared to only 3 million new wage jobs are created. This is mainly because unfortunately economic growth in Africa has not been driven by labor-intensive sectors such as manufacturing. The continent’s manufacturing share of GDP remained constant over the last 30 years: around 12% from 1980 to 2013.
On the supply side, youth do not have the appropriate skills needed by employers. Two-thirds of African youth either have no formal education or have only a primary level education. Even where there have been gains in access, quality remains a challenge, leaving graduates unprepared with skills necessary for jobs. Education policies do not incentivize entrepreneurial curricula.
Therefore there are challenges in linking potential employers to qualified employees and young people are ill prepared to set up their own businesses and be employers of other young people.
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An initial set of six flagship program models have been built from best practices of other projects. The programs focus on three sectors with high potential for youth inclusion: agriculture, industrialization, and ICT (Details can be read from the slide itself)
These three high priority sectors provide opportunities for job creation across a variety of country contexts and demographic segments, creating a “menu” of project options for RMCs to choose from.
Over the next decade, additional flagship programs can be designed and implemented for other sectors
La stratégie intervient tout au long de la chaine de valeur et se focalisent sur des produit de bases prioritaires selon les zones agro-écologiques. Tel déjà indique par le directeur en côte d’ivoire les produits de bases prioritaire éventuel pourrait être : le manioc, le riz, Le cacao cafe, les noix d’acajou, bétail, et le lait.