Why The Africa Syndicate Blog?
In January 2016, The Africa Syndicate Blog was created to provide a platform to share historic, social, and economic development opinions on Africa and its people. As other existing blogs are not easily accessible to Africans on the continent, we are providing this accessible and “free” blog to all Africans and especially, to policy makers and Africa’s youth--the future of the continent. Opinions expressed are that of the editors.
By all accounts, international trade is in trouble as anti-globalization sentiment continues to grow across continents especially in the U.S. and Europe. Some say it’s the slow economic recovery that has fueled protectionist, xenophobic and nationalistic politics that has given rise to Donald Trump and Marine LePen. It is undeniable that there is a popular sense of disenfranchisement or being left behind by many citizens in these nations.
The long standing problems with remittances to African countries and the need to address the factors that currently impede the full benefits of remittances from materializing must be the focus of African governments immediately.
The twenty-first century has ushered in an era of ever-heightened power of ideas and knowledge. Although natural resources, such as the ones that make the African continent one of the wealthiest regions of the globe, remain vital to economic prosperity through industrialization; and although labor-intensive and capital-intensive activities are central to the creation of such prosperity, the current revolution in information and communication technology makes ideas and knowledge all the more critical. Contrasting the decline of Detroit, the former automobile hub of America, and the rise of Silicon Valley, the information and communication technology capital of America and the world, may seem to be a cliche. It does, nevertheless, speak to that critically.
The objective of this article is to briefly remind us of the alarming youth unemployment problem on the African continent. What have Africans, not just their leaders, done to help address the problem? The high rates of unemployment will continue to have serious impacts on the rights of Africans to earn their living. The consequences of unemployment are already self-evident: population movements into bloated cities; migration to Europe and elsewhere that often leads to the death of young, educated people in foreign seas, and the abuse and incarceration of those who make it to foreign land. Youth unemployment also threatens the national security of all 54 African countries, and by extension that of the Western nations as more young Africans become susceptible to the rhetoric of extremist groups.