Tanzania has cautioned against the increasing rate of unemployment among youths in Africa. It has also predicted the occurrence of ‘’unemployment springs’’ that will cripple democratically-elected governments in the continent.
President Jakaya Kikwete
“The Arab springs were about governments that had overstayed but the unemployment spring is coming to Africa and will not spare democratic governments,” President Jakaya Kikwete said at the Japan International Cooperation Agency -organised dialogue on unemployment.
Mr Kikwete said employment and poverty remained the major issues that his government has been grappling with, citing increased investments, value addition and creating conducive environment for self-employment as strategies that the government has been resorting to — to curb what he termed ‘serious social and economic problems.’
“Tanzania’s unemployment stands at 11 per cent while the poverty rate is estimated at 33 per cent. All these are by any standard undesirable high rates,” the president told the dialogue.
He said through the public-private partnership arrangement, the government is determined to invest heavily, particularly in agriculture, which employs over 80 per cent of all Tanzanians.
“We want to make good use of our agricultural produce through agro-processing. Why should we import lint instead of processing it into garment?” Mr Kikwete wondered. The president requested multinational companies to relocate their industries to Africa – including Tanzania — from China and India.
“Reports have it that these places are no longer cheap due to escalating labour costs,” he told the gathering. Addressing the same event, South African President Jacob Zuma decried the high rate of unemployment among youths in his country, saying his government was drawing up policies that prioritise youth welfare, especially employment.
He noted with concern that over 75 percent of unemployed persons in South Africa were youths under 34 years of age. “We are taking the issue of youth employment seriously for we know a nation that does not care for its youths has no future and doesn’t deserve one either.”
Meanwhile, President Kikwete has implored fellow African leaders to increase budgetary allocation to campaigns against infectious diseases, if the continent has to really achieve the targeted economic growth it aspires for.
“Infectious diseases and economic growth are intertwined. Malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS are the real cause of health and economic sufferings in Africa,” President Kikwete said in his keynote address to one of the fifth Tokyo International conference on Africa’s (TICAD -V) plenary sessions: From Okinawa to Tomorrow.
Mr Kikwete said Africans suffer from such infectious diseases as malaria, TB and AIDS, adding that the lasting solution to the problem was mobilisation of financial, technological and human resource capital to ‘’confront the diseases head on.’’
He, however, acknowledged tremendous efforts registered in the fight against the deadly infections, saying while only 50,000 HIV-infected people in Sub-Saharan Africa were on ARVs in 2000, the number increased to six million by 2011.
The president said through donor support, 95 per cent of Tanzanian households have at least one insecticide treated net while 57, 68 and 75 per cent of the population, children under five and expecting mothers, respectively, sleep under treated nets. The TICAD-V that had brought here over 40 heads of state from all over Africa ended yesterday.
By MASATO MASATO, Tanzania Daily News
