Browsing: youth in Africa

Famine and drought are among the two key precursors to the devastating hunger crises that has ravaged many communities across Africa, signifying the scale and severity of food insecurity in the continent. Inarguably the Covid-19 pandemic has aggravated food security in the continent pertinently triggered by the economic fallout that has left no country unscathed. According to a recently released multi-agency report, ‘The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World’, around a tenth of the global population an estimated 811million people were undernourished in 2020. 

Also Read: FAO says Kenya requires US$87mn to ensure food security

The report, jointly published by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO); the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD); the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF); the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organization (WHO); revealed that the sharpest rise in hunger was in Africa, where the estimated prevalence of undernourishment

Africa’s labour pool is uniquely made up of various sections, the most dominant one being the informal sector—encompassing the most human capital, catering for most young-population livelihoods and it is highly un-attended—in terms of proper management and regulations by governments across the region and there is substantial evidence to back this claim. 

According to a 2018 publication by the World Bank Understanding the informal economy in African cities: Recent evidence from Greater Kampala, the informal sector accounts for huge employment in African cities, marking 86 per cent of total employment in sub-Saharan Africa according to the International Labor Organization estimates (ILO). 

“With a pervasive informal sector, city governments have been struggling with how best to respond. On the one hand, a large informal sector often adds to city congestion, through informal vending and transport services, and does not contribute to city revenue,”