Since its establishment in 1963, the African Union has been echoing the importance of the integration of the African society. Free movement of Africans in the land of Africa immensely contributes to facilitate effective trade and people-to-people ties.
Thus, the founding fathers of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) also depicted the foundation for the continent’s sustainable socio-economic development. Recently, the African Union Commission (AUC) held its 5th Mid-Year Coordination Meeting, (MYCM) that focused on enhancing synergy in its efforts towards Africa’s integration. Accordingly, the meeting brought together Regional Economic Communities (RECs), Regional Mechanism (RMs) and member states to review the progress of the continental integration agenda.
It is high-time to address the obstacles of continental integration by exploring avenues to enhance integration including the promotion of free movement and the African passport, connecting infrastructure, connecting African financial markets, and a common African market to accelerate trade, agriculture, establishment of businesses and transfer of skills in Africa, its press release indicated.
To accelerate these efforts, the meeting discussed the progress on the division of labor between the AU, RECs, RMs and member states, anchored on the principles of subsidiarity, complementary and competitive advantage. The division of labor is centered on six pillars namely, policy planning and formulation; policy adoption; policy implementation; monitoring, evaluation and reporting; resource mobilization; and partnerships. Efforts on resource mobilization to finance Agenda 2063 will focus on Africa’s economic recovery and implementing initiatives to address challenges in agriculture, infrastructure, debt, climate change, security, energy, and health.
During the African Job Creation Forum that was held in Addis Ababa as part of the African Integration Day commemoration Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister Demeke Mekonen urged African countries to double efforts to address problems in creating job opportunities. The Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister called up on African countries to double efforts to address the problems in creating job opportunities in the continent.
Among the current 1.4 billion population of Africa, 60 percent is below the age of 25 and this makes the continent the youngest part of the world. If properly managed, it is a blessing and a huge asset because the greater the population, the largest workforce that expands production capacity, he said.
“Unfortunately, the rate of unemployment particularly the unemployment rate of youth and women in Africa is the highest with a serious impact on the standard of living.” The unemployment challenges that Africans are facing mainly originate from mismanaged labor supply and demand caused by a lack of qualified skilled training tailored to the 21st-century markets, inflation and recession, Demeke stated.
Recurrent conflict and instability that leads to shrink in investment, capital migration, and bankruptcy, faulty job creation planning and unorganized support for Enterprise Development as well as less organized entrepreneurial mindset and weak working culture, coupled with weakness in continental integration to respond to the interconnected problems are also the other challenges, he elaborated.
“Moreover, advocacy platforms like the forum you concluded today, to coordinate and integrate national capacities should be organized every year as we did in Ethiopia since 2020, Demeke said, adding that “the Africa jobs summit that we are laying the foundation for will leave us with plenty of ideas, motivations, and visions to implement agenda 2063.”
According to him, it is necessary to make sure that entrepreneurs have got the necessary policy attention and integrated continental strategic intervention. To this end, Ethiopia, in collaboration with the African Union, and partners like AE-Trade, will take a leading role to promote advocacy and awareness creation campaigns at the continental level using the African job submit platform.”
African Union Commission Deputy Chairperson, Monique Nsanzabaganwa on her part said that Africa has more than 70 percent youth and job creation is critical in the continent. “These three days were intense, packed with good news, passion, commitment, and pledges,” the Deputy Chairperson observed.
“As the host of this forum, AU is happier that you made the celebration of the 7th of July, Africa Integration Day, more meaningful and we appreciate the AE-Trade, the government of Ethiopia, and everyone who has contributed to the successful job creation forum,” she remarked.
Meanwhile, the United African Royal Assembly on the occasion pledged support of mobilizing investment to the value of between six to eight billion USD to create jobs between 80 to 125 million over the next 10 to 15 years. There were also other pledges from other institutions.
“We have heard the big figure 80 million to 125 million jobs that we are all up to be creating,” the Deputy Chairperson of AU pointed out referring to the pledge made during the forum by a United African Royal Assembly representative.
She further said, “according to the African Union’s targets, 50 percent of this could go to women. And the African Union has a target for you; which is 35 percent, but the commitment I heard here, I think we are aiming actually higher than 35 because the youth is actually more or around 70 percent if we are talking about the proportions that we have to keep.
So, I look forward to this as a key measure flagship as we work the journey for the next 10 years of the agenda 2063. One of the moon shots of that journey is that we make sure each and every member state has achieved at least the middle-income level by 2033. Hearing what I’m hearing here, I have no doubt that we are going to achieve that, she said.
She also mentioned to organize programs that are aiming to mobilize Finance, Financial inclusion, jobs, employment parity, and quota systems for public and private procurement. “And we want at least 80 percent of all the banks in the nations in the 55 countries to be reporting what are their commitments to women, youth, and SMEs”, she said.
The African Union 5th Mid-Year Coordination Meeting, MYCM, concluded on 16th July with the adoption of a Declaration giving emphasis on the need to hasten Africa’s integration process to tackle the challenges caused by globalization, and the importance of the harmonization of national and regional policies to promote socio-economic development.
BY TEWODROS KASSA
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD SATURDAY 22 JULY 2023
