Researches show that the economic growth across several African economies is largely ‘job-less’. Youth un employment remains a component of Africa’s growth owing to persistent low productivity and underemployment in the informal sector. The resultant implication of this manifested through persistent inequality, poverty and migration of young people to industrialized nations in search of livelihood opportunities.
Reports indicate that Ethiopia is doing its level best regarding creating massive job opportunities across industrial parks and mega projects, either been found under construction or terminated nationwide.
Skill and education are important both to make the industrialization process more successful and ensure that the workers, especially women and youth, benefit more from industrial jobs.There has been significant success in improving access to education following the massive investment in the sector, while its quality is still far reaching which needs integrated effort from different stakes.
Recently, the Ethiopian National Human Development Report 2018 was launched themed “Industrialization with a Human Face”.
On the event, National Planning CommissionCommissioner Fitsum Asefa (PhD) said that prioritising human development is an exigent issue to boost the industry sector with competitive human power. The government is installing various policy interventions to make the human development swift, she added.
According to her, industrial development of the country will be succeeded while investors and other stakes work hand in glove.
Labour intensive human development is one of the fundame- ntal requirements to fulfil the competitive human power demand of mega industrial parks that has been constructed across the country, she underlined.
She further said that, the report is important in intensifying the linkage between the industrial development and human power development in the country.
The 2018 Ethiopian National Human Development Report put six areas of policy interventions that are needed to ensure inclusive and sustainable industry-human power development, especially in manufacturing sector. Create decent jobs and skills development for youth, remove barriers to women’s equitable roles and benefits from industrialization, leverage innovations, encourage industrial value chains, integrated approaches across agriculture, environment and urban planning and finally strengthen infrastructure, financial access for competitive industrial growth.
ICT induced applications play pivotal role in mediating job-seekers and industries.
Thus, testing new Smartphone and web-based applications can serve as another innovative way to overcome problems seen in mediating the demand and supply from the job-seeker and industry poles.
Presenting the 2018 Report, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Aeneas Chuma said that the report is the second report on national Human development that UNDP has produced for Ethiopia in the last 4 years. The launch of this report marks an important milestone in our collective objective of raising public awareness on key development issues and trigger action on critical human development concerns, he added.
“It is important to note that since the inception of Global and National Human Development Reports in 1992, over 550 reports and a great number of disaggregated and supplementary human development indices have been produced- reflecting on global context and national realities. If you look at the global Human Development Reports over the years, Ethiopia has sustained strong progress in the last 15 years.”
As to him, the national human development reports play a critical role in advancing thought leadership on people-centered development and influencing policy choices and options on potential drivers of human transformation and sustainable development.
This report has been produced in close consultation with Planning and Development Commission and involved a series of consultative meetings and roundtables with key stakeholders including the private sector, civil society organizations, development partners and academicians.
The quality and credibility of this report is hinged on the fact that the process of its production has been country-driven and utilizes local data generated from the official sources and benefits from the contribution of an array of national actors, he noted.
The report, he said,offers sound and realistic analysis as well as provides key messages for policy makers. “We therefore encourage our diverse audience of policy makers, researchers, civil society organizations, business community, academia and the public at large to read the report and engage in an open dialogue.”
“It is imperative that we continuously examine development outcomes from the prism of human lenses. The 2018 National Human development report deliberately chose the theme of industrialization in line with the country’s ambition of becoming a major hub of light manufacturing industry in the continent. This objective is central to Ethiopia’s ambition of becoming a lower middle-income and carbon neutral country by 2025 and fundamentally, a drive for promoting sustainable human development.”
He also highlighted the three important key messages that are coming from the report. The first is the argument that the benefits and costs of the industrialization process in Ethiopia must be managed for inclusive growth and keep human development as the primer goal.
The second is the argument that women’s participation and leadership is a critical outcome of the industrialization process and we need to invest in the removal to barriers to gender equality and women’s empowerment.
And the third point thatneeds to leverage is innovation in industrial parks and harness new approaches such as establishing innovation labs to re-design public service delivery, drawing on data revolution to implement and monitor both the national and international development commitments.
He underlined that this report will stimulate policy debates and contributes to a meaningful discourse on how the acceleration of the industrialization as a pathway to economic structural transformation will result into positive human development outcomes.
Accordingly, in the coming months the Commission and the UNDP expected to organizes uch successive dedicated seminars on the report in different Universities in order to build policy advocacy and awareness on the nexus of industrialization and human development and look for ward towards exalted public engagement in this regard.
Herald December 19/2018
BY TEWODROS KASSA
