Executive Summary
There are more young people in Africa than anywhere else in the world. This has endowed the continent with the potential for unparalleled energy, dynamism, and innovation. Unfortunately, this priceless asset of a predominantly youthful population can easily be undermined by lingering youth unemployment across the continent. This GEO for Youth Africa: A Wealth of Green Opportunities publication explores the economic opportunities that can be found in Africa’s vast natural resources.
The first aspiration of the African Union’s Agenda 2063 is, ‘a prosperous Africa based on inclusive growth and sustainable development’. Africa must therefore shift towards an inclusive green economy that will replenish the environment and deliver jobs to youth. The time is ripe for new development models that can drive growth in income and employment for youth, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities. Such models must be championed by young people. They want an Africa where the indignity of unemployment is consigned to the past. In this envisioned Africa, the green economy will trigger a multiplicity of new economic opportunities for youth across the continent.
Air pollution, whose greenhouse gases are a key contributor to climate change, is responsible for approximately 600,000 deaths in Africa annually. This must be decisively addressed through sustainable solutions, such as the construction of better ventilated housing and clean cook stoves, interventions that can easily create youth jobs. Climate change can undermine all conservation and restoration efforts if not met with concerted and consistent action.
The transport sector is also a major contributor to air pollution in Africa. To counter this, African Governments should fast track development of citywide non-motorized transport policies and infrastructure. Moreover, youth should be on the forefront of lobbying for and utilizing non-motorised transport like cycling. If more African youth embrace cycling, governments will end up planning for and putting in place cycling infrastructure.
The renewable energy sector is emerging in Africa, as African countries try to mitigate their GHG emissions. Energy created through solar photovoltaic cells, landfill gas and biomass plants, creates more jobs per unit of energy than energy created from fossil fuels. These jobs can easily exceed 20 million by 2030. This positive job creation effect of off-grid electricity is a result of longer and more diverse supply chains, higher labour intensity, and increased net profit margins. Jobs in renewable energy can be created directly and indirectly along the entire value chain, including in the manufacturing and distribution of equipment; the production of inputs such as tools and chemicals; or
even in services like project management, installation, operation, and maintenance. All these economic opportunities can only be fully tapped into through substantially greater adoption of renewable energy.
Land is the true wealth of Africa and is home to a dazzling diversity of natural resources and ecosystems including soils, vegetation, water, and genetic diversity. Together, these resources form the continent’s main natural capital that anchors essential ecosystem services and functions. By virtue of their demographic dominance, African youth can play a pivotal role in the sustainable management of Africa’s land, unlocking sustainable livelihoods. If Africa unlocks its arable land potential and begins to export substantially more food globally, considerably more jobs will be created. Climate smart agriculture presents an avenue for reinforcing the livelihoods of smallholder farmers, among them young farmers, by equipping them with more effective ways of managing natural resources and deploying technologies that will help them produce and sell more.
It is quite telling that the global food value chain already employs almost one billion people and generates up to US$2,400 billion to the global economy. It is estimated that the world will need to increase food production by at least 50 per cent by 2050 to adequately feed the population. As such, Climate Smart Agriculture presents a golden opportunity for African youth to insert themselves into the global food production value chain in a sustainable manner.
Africa’s freshwater ecosystems include 63 shared river basins whose economic opportunities are abundant. These river basins are also critical for meeting Africa’s energy needs. Currently 90 per cent of Africa’s hydroelectricity potential remains untapped. If this is addressed, there will be more energy access across the continent, which would lessen pressures on forests since they continue to supply the bulk of the continent’s cooking fuel needs. Moreover, these river basins support inland fisheries in dozens of countries, creating, in the process, jobs for thousands of young people.
African youth are also gainfully employed in coastal areas whose tourism thrives from the marine ecosystem and Africa’s small island developing states are dependent on tourism, albeit, at varying degrees. As such, the blue economy is a major provider of jobs in these countries which portends the great potential of the blue economy to provide increased decent employment for African youth. This is why the African Union has placed a high premium on the blue economy as the new economic frontier that will create employment.
The millions of African youth who live in coastal countries should be enabled to seize the economic opportunities presented by the rich marine ecosystem in their respective countries. These economic opportunities transcend the fisheries and coastal tourism sectors
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A Wealth of Green Opportunities
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