APA – Dakar (Senegal) – Young people in sub-Saharan Africa are innovative” and hard-working despite the obstacles to finding a job, African researchers say.
In Africa, the vocabulary of the Western media and organisations is sometimes pejorative when describing the present and future of young people. The prevailing stereotypes conjure up a picture of them as “careless, lazy and unwilling to take charge of their lives”, but the reality is quite different, according to a study by the Partnership for Social Research and Governance in Africa (PASGR) presented in Dakar on Wednesday 29 May.
Conducted by researchers from the Consortium for Economic and Social Research (CRES) in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation, the study was carried out in 2021 in seven countries on the continent, most of them English-speaking (Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria) and Senegal. The aim of the study was to “determine the resilience of young people and capture their aspirations” following the difficult period of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The study, which was carried out by a team of African researchers, finds that young Senegalese men and women have a “strong desire” for training and entrepreneurship.
The researchers find that “young men want to work in diversified sectors, while women are mainly oriented towards commerce”.
Most of the young people questioned also believe that “money and training remain the main needs for a successful life”.
On the other hand, “few young people are aware of the government structures responsible for promoting youth employment”, says the team led by Mamadou Abdoulaye Diallo and Jim Kaketch, one of the main authors of the study.
During the workshop, which was presented using the “Utafiti Sera” model, which means linking evidence to policies and programmes in Swahili, James Ochieng, head of research at PASGR, highlighted the “enormous challenges” facing African countries in overcoming unemployment.
“We need to unite and make a collective effort to overcome this problem”, he says, before calling for massive investment in young people and the involvement of the “private sector” in the fight against unemployment.
Adopting a participatory research approach led by young people, the study shows that in Senegal, with the onset of the pandemic, young people have had to face a variety of difficulties, including containment measures leading to school closures, salary cuts, an increase in the cost of living and loss of employment. Taking part in the workshop, the representative of the Senegalese Ministry of Youth notes that PASGR’s approach was “directly in line” with the policy of the new authorities.
Representing over 70% of the population, “Senegal’s young people are the country’s lifeblood”, and the Ministry of Youth has set itself the main task of putting in place mechanisms to “promote youth entrepreneurship” or offer them “decent jobs”. With this in mind, the Senegalese official stresses that “African solutions” were welcome.
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