Africa-Press – Namibia. FOR MANY DECADES Namibia’s youth in business were never accorded opportunities and a platform to trade continentally or regionally, efficiently and sufficiently. This has created vulnerability among the youth in business to trade across borders.
The lack of incentives, high taxation, poor infrastructure, the multiplicity of currencies, and a lack of modern technology made it impossible for African free trade, especially among the youth.
Youth inclusion should be the first step to successful intra-trade in Africa. This is critical in achieving sustainable growth, economic development, and social stability in any economy.
Nationally, entrepreneurial empowerment is developed through institutions like StartUp Namibia and others. Continentally, the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement should be directed at aggressively addressing youth unemployment.
A free trade agreement is a pact between two or more nations to reduce barriers to imports and exports among them. Ideally, the overarching objective behind the AfCFTA agreement is the elimination or reduction of tariff and non-tariff barriers among the 54 African countries that agreed to be members of the bloc.
This is done by providing a single market for goods and services, facilitated by the movement of people to deepen economic integration and prosperity.
We hope that the AfCFTA agreement would ensure that many young citizens are given a platform to engage with formal regional and national structures within their jurisdictions.
It is anticipated that the youth would have an opportunity for decent and productive economic development through the agreement. The globe is finding itself amid the fourth Industrial Revolution, which means jobs are absorbed by technology and industries are shrinking.
In the absence of human capital development, the continent needs to find the best mechanisms to tackle the accelerating rate of youth unemployment. A labour employment data crisis is currently contributing to ineffective policy responses to the problems of youth unemployment on the continent at large.
Investing in digital agriculture, digital infrastructure, and the adoption of a single currency will play a bigger role in achieving sustainable growth going forward.
Young people need to develop a high-level spirit of willingness to contribute to and invest in their communities. Increased public investment in new technology, research, and programmes designed to tackle young people’s thorniest problems are required.
The youth needs much effort to ensure that Africa undergoes a remarkable economic and social transformation towards Agenda 2063. The AfCFTA agreement is the most fascinating initiative and is a promising tool that will facilitate a process of inclusive structural transformation of African countries with their rapidly growing youth populations.
It will serve as an economic icon for Africa. For decades now, trade barriers and unfavourable policy systems have made trade in goods and services an ongoing challenge across Africa.
Other parts of the continent have been facing difficulty in implementing regulations to facilitate greater intra-regional movement of individuals, which affects the transfer and movement of many other professional services too.
However, through the AfCFTA, many barriers to entrepreneurship are removed, helping young people to transform their creative and innovative ideas into successful business plans. YOUTH VULNERABILITY
Although the Covid-19 pandemic has severely damaged the job market for young people, there is huge potential for Africa’s young labour force, and we hope the gains from economic integration through AfCFTA would be fairly distributed across the continent. Under normal circumstances, the youth faces multiple barriers preventing them from benefiting from international trade.
Among others are the increasing vulnerability to an increased unemployment rate, poorer-quality jobs for those who acquire jobs, labour-market inequalities, and an increased mismatch between skills and labour market needs, which limit young people’s overall market participation.
They experience growing frustration with dramatic governance and political climate in their respective countries. On that note, many are risking their lives through transatlantic migration in search of better opportunities on other continents.
African tertiary qualifications are often not recognised intra-regionally, making it expensive and difficult for young people to move and look for formal employment in neighbouring countries.
The bureaucracy issue in obtaining work permits is shifting highly qualified African youths to informal trade and other informal jobs. THORNY ISSUES Currently the greatest potential for job creation in Namibia lies in local small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and many youths are directed to these sectors.
The International Trade Centre believes young people are 1,6 times more likely to start a business than people above 35. It is widely accepted that entrepreneurship is a breakthrough in achieving the youth’s financial independence, however, in the absence of youth inclusion in trade policy, existing value chains, and export sectors via the AfCFTA agreement, financial independence is nullified.
The World Trade Organisation recognises the role of the youth in trade, and the importance of empowering young people to participate in global trade. However, a report from the Mo-Ibrahim Foundation indicated that young people’s participation in cross-border trade and trade governance matters is still very limited in Africa.
Economically, the reduction of non-tariff barriers to trade through AfCFTA lowers trade costs, which increases the meaningful participation of the youth in regional and international trade. The issue of differences in economic structures and exchange-rate costs remains crucial, but unattended – just like the issue of rules of origin.
Rules of origin are the criteria needed to determine the national source of a product, and their significance is derived from the fact that duties and restrictions in several cases depend on the source of imports.
In the AfCFTA context, rules of origin are crucial, and have a material impact on how African companies trade with their counterparts across the continent.
According to the Global Trade Review, this is because of the thousands of tariff lines, and these rules will specify whether a product can be categorised as ‘African made’, and eligible for tariff concessions. Many fears exist around it.
Despite the above-mentioned challenges, the hope is that the AfCFTA agreement would create a lot of entrepreneurs, and would motivate youth-led infant industries to diversify and penetrate new markets, and expand their customers and services into member state markets.
Information needs to be disseminated to all economic-market participants. Nations may as well work towards aligning their economic structures with one another.
Innovative young people across Africa can then specialise in the goods they are good at producing, and hence gain comparative advantages. This may increase overall total production and simultaneously increase economic growth.
EXPLANATIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS In order to create a smooth and effective single market, Africa needs to rise and look into adopting a large-scale internship programme in all employment sectors for those seeking work experience.
Through the AfCFTA, young graduates should be automatically accustomed to entrepreneurship provided there are incentives to support the growth of SMEs.
In their nature of unemployment, young Africans should be given low-interest access to finance which does not require property-based collateral and guarantees. Investment in innovation is crucial.
Opportunities for young people, such as upgrading their skills, reducing their vulnerabilities to risk through social protection, improvement of their working conditions, minimum wages, and greater protection of their rights under the legal frameworks should be clearly defined and made available.
The AfCFTA agreement may work towards implementing national qualification frameworks to ease the labour mobility of its youth. This could be divided into four or five communities, for example the Southern African Development Community qualification framework, and the West African qualification framework.
Despite the implementation, it should be the responsibility of AfCFTA policymakers to listen to and work with young people through various platforms, and to diagnose their challenges to ensure that intra-trade and trade governance contribute to more inclusive and sustainable development outcomes across the continent.
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