Africa’s Agenda 2063 and the Sustainable Development Goals’ overarching priorities are eradication of poverty and inequality. Both Agendas recognise the multidimensional structure of poverty in monetary and non-monetary terms.

Africa’s paradox of jobless growth can be explained by the fact that growth has been commodity-driven, mainly by the high global demand for the continent’s minerals and oil – two commodities whose production is highly capital-intensive - and to a lesser extent, agriculture. For growth to positively impact employment, and reduce significantly poverty and inequality, the structure of Africa’s economies must be transformed away from this commodity dependency towards manufacturing-based employment-generation production activities, strongly anchored on commodity-based value addition, using the continent’s natural resources in highly sustainable ways.

Formulating a determined and focused programme of action to significantly boost employment levels and drastically reduce the incidence of low productivity will go a long way in supporting the drive to eradicate poverty from the face of the continent. Income inequality in Africa is very high as measured by the Gini coefficient, which shows the proportion of the national wealth that goes to the various segments of the population. If income inequalities are high, basic services will not be accessed uniformly or fairly by all citizens.

Problems of unemployment and underemployment, inequalities and inadequate social protection account for the most part, for the continent’s poverty. Although poverty ratios have declined in the last ten years, the absolute numbers of poor people subsisting on less than USD 1.90 a day has increased. Eliminating this scourge in the next fifteen years, as required by Agenda 2063 and the Sustainable Development Goals, will constitute a major challenge to Africa’s policy and decision makers.

At current rates of growth, Africa will have to contend with a huge population increase rising to 1.6 billion people in the next fifteen years. By 2050, the total number of people on the continent might be twice as many as it is today, with 60% being youths aged 16 to 24. By that time, the continent’s labour force will be larger than that of India and China combined. Measures need to be instituted in order to turn this large youth population into a development asset, so that Africa can harness the expected demographic dividend to fuel socio-economic transformation of the continent.

AUDA-NEPAD will inscribe its actions within the strategies that address issues of equity, transparency and inclusiveness as an integral part of Africa’s development strategies.

Dr Ibrahim Assane Mayaki

CEO, AUDA-NEPAD