Nigeria, Other African Nations Must Improve Infrastructures, Reduce Unemployment to Boost Growth

Nigeria’s rising unemployment rate is becoming unbearable with no end in sight despite the nation’s potential and vast natural resources. Battered by the Covid-19 pandemic, weak economic fundamentals and many more, Africa’s largest economy, continues to struggle to address salient issues like infrastructure, rising debt servicing cost, etc.

Nigeria and other African countries have been advised to broaden and improve their infrastructures if they must rein in their unemployment rates and boost economic growth post-pandemic.

According to a report by Bloomberg, the most industrialized African nation, South Africa has the highest unemployment rate on a global list of 82 countries with a jobless rate of 34.4 percent in Q2, 2021, while Namibia trailed South Africa with 33.4 percent and Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, came third with 33.3 percent unemployment rate.

The global chief economist, Renaissance Capital, Charles Robertson advised the African countries to look deeply into industrialization, their educated population and electricity in a bid to record sustainable growth like their Asian counterpart.

According to him, about five decades ago, the Asian Tigers, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan, were in almost similar conditions as most African countries today, but they leveraged on the impact of industrialization, building major industrial estates, offering tax incentives to foreign investors, and implementing compulsory education for its young population, this was when the global economy was just starting to recover from the traumas of the Second World War.

A professor in the institution of statistical, social, and economic research, University of Ghana, Peter Quartey stated that African countries should look beyond becoming import-dependent with less production, less manufacturing, and more consumption. Quartey explained that the region if continued on the current path, will keep creating jobs for others, who have developed their country.

In a statement by the World Bank, 80 percent of the world’s extremely poor people reside in countries with a human capital index under 0.5, which Nigeria with (0.36), Angola (0.36), Ethiopia (0.38), and Tanzania (0.38) falls into this category compared to the ‘tiger’ nations that have some of the world’s highest human capital index, Singapore (0.88), Hong Kong (0.81) and South Korea (0.80).

The CEO, Alluvial Agriculture, Dimieari Von Kemedi at the business gathering has challenged Africa for underutilizing agriculture given its 60 percent of the world’s uncultivated arable land. He urged the continent to effectively utilize its comparative advantage in agriculture, adding that it will enhance the capacity and productivity of small-scale farmers.

However, the industry experts claimed that the ability to create opportunities for its young talents to acquire skills and reduce brain drain will also play a role in taking Africa to its desired destination.

In recent times, many of Africa’s experts and talented minds had fled the continent to other regions with necessary infrastructures. For example, Nigeria saw 805 medical doctors migrate to the UK between July and December 2021, according to the data by the British General Medical Council.

The managing director of Africa’s largest disposable Syringe Company, Jubilee Syringe, Akin Oyediran said if Africa continent must achieve the much-needed development, it should do well by retaining its health workers in order to boost the health sector, reduce brain drain, and ease medical workers off tax.