Africa poverty summit to focus on creating jobs

OUAGADOUGOU – Heads of state from some two dozen African gathered here yesterday to craft a jobs creation plan that would lift hundreds of millions out of poverty and advance development on the world’s poorest continent.

Chaired by Nigeria’s Olusegun Obasanjo, president of the African Union, the two-day summit aims to find “remedies” for the epidemic of unemployment and underemployment that has failed to provide paid work for three-quarters of the population. Investment in agriculture, the mainstay of most of Africa’s economies — and the rural subsistence farmers who make up 225 million of Africa’s 300 million poorest people — is among the key themes to be broached at the summit.So too is finding a better way to compensate the millions of urban poor, and women in particular, in the sprawling slums of Africa’s mega cities such as Lagos, Kinshasa and Johannesburg engaged in informal employment.Africa has made tiny steps towards economic growth, progressing from 3,2 per cent in 2002 to 4,2 per cent in 2003, but those steps have not been complemented by an expansion of gainful employment.The problem is even more pressing when mindful of statistics that show the continent’s labour force expanding to 366 million people in 2015, with a record half of those job-seekers in urban areas.”(Economic) growth without employment means aggravating inequality; instead of spreading wealth, it concentrates it,” said Juan Somavia, head of the International Labour Organisation, told reporters in the Burkina Faso capital late Tuesday as presidents from South Africa, Zimbabwe, Gabon and Senegal were arriving.Government leaders from Burundi, Namibia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Benin, Mali and Tunisia were also to attend.More than 320 million people across the 34 countries in sub-Saharan Africa live in extreme poverty – surviving on less than one US dollar (N$6,62) a day without consistent access to clean water, sanitation or health care.Sub-Saharan Africa is the only place in the world where things are worse now than 20 years ago, according to the UN Development Program, and is likely the only region to be unable to reach UN millennium development goals that would halve poverty by 2015.Poverty has outpaced population growth across the continent for the last decade, expanding at 3,3 per cent per year compared to 3,1 per cent annual growth for the continent as a whole, according to the International Fund for Agricultural Development.Meanwhile Reuters reports that International Monetary Fund chief Rodrigo Rato plans to meet President Robert Mugabe at the AU summit this week to discuss Zimbabwe’s looming expulsion from the fund, Rato said late on Tuesday.Zimbabwe faces expulsion from the Washington-based Fund over massive arrears and its economic policy, but the IMF granted the country a six-month stay of execution in July after Harare resumed some payments and made “limited” policy improvements.In an interview with Reuters during a flight to an African Union summit on poverty in Burkina Faso, Rato declined to say whether he or Mugabe had requested the meeting, expected to take place during the two-day summit.He said the meeting would focus on “the situation of Zimbabwe and the relations with the Fund”.The southern African country has been without IMF aid since 1999.”It’s a very serious situation, and we are happy to be able to talk to the president as the situation demands serious action,” Rato said.He said he would ask Mugabe “to develop a macroeconomic framework that is sustainable, to get back to a normal situation with no arrears to the Fund, and to strengthen monetary policy and good governance”.Zimbabwe’s economy is in its fifth year of recession, grappling with an unemployment rate estimated at 70 per cent and annual inflation hovering just below 400 per cent, down from a record peak of 623 per cent in January.-Nampa-AFP-ReutersInvestment in agriculture, the mainstay of most of Africa’s economies — and the rural subsistence farmers who make up 225 million of Africa’s 300 million poorest people — is among the key themes to be broached at the summit.So too is finding a better way to compensate the millions of urban poor, and women in particular, in the sprawling slums of Africa’s mega cities such as Lagos, Kinshasa and Johannesburg engaged in informal employment.Africa has made tiny steps towards economic growth, progressing from 3,2 per cent in 2002 to 4,2 per cent in 2003, but those steps have not been complemented by an expansion of gainful employment.The problem is even more pressing when mindful of statistics that show the continent’s labour force expanding to 366 million people in 2015, with a record half of those job-seekers in urban areas.”(Economic) growth without employment means aggravating inequality; instead of spreading wealth, it concentrates it,” said Juan Somavia, head of the International Labour Organisation, told reporters in the Burkina Faso capital late Tuesday as presidents from South Africa, Zimbabwe, Gabon and Senegal were arriving.Government leaders from Burundi, Namibia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Benin, Mali and Tunisia were also to attend.More than 320 million people across the 34 countries in sub-Saharan Africa live in extreme poverty – surviving on less than one US dollar (N$6,62) a day without consistent access to clean water, sanitation or health care.Sub-Saharan Africa is the only place in the world where things are worse now than 20 years ago, according to the UN Development Program, and is likely the only region to be unable to reach UN millennium development goals that would halve poverty by 2015.Poverty has outpaced population growth across the continent for the last decade, expanding at 3,3 per cent per year compared to 3,1 per cent annual growth for the continent as a whole, according to the International Fund for Agricultural Development.Meanwhile Reuters reports that International Monetary Fund chief Rodrigo Rato plans to meet President Robert Mugabe at the AU summit this week to discuss Zimbabwe’s looming expulsion from the fund, Rato said late on Tuesday.Zimbabwe faces expulsion from the Washington-based Fund over massive arrears and its economic policy, but the IMF granted the country a six-month stay of execution in July after Harare resumed some payments and made “limited” policy improvements.In an interview with Reuters during a flight to an African Union summit on poverty in Burkina Faso, Rato declined to say whether he or Mugabe had requested the meeting, expected to take place during the two-day summit.He said the meeting would focus on “the situation of Zimbabwe and the relations with the Fund”.The southern African country has been without IMF aid since 1999.”It’s a very serious situation, and we are happy to be able to talk to the president as the situation demands serious action,” Rato said.He said he would ask Mugabe “to develop a macroeconomic framework that is sustainable, to get back to a normal situation with no arrears to the Fund, and to strengthen monetary policy and good governance”.Zimbabwe’s economy is in its fifth year of recession, grappling with an unemployment rate estimated at 70 per cent and annual inflation hovering just below 400 per cent, down from a record peak of 623 per cent in January.-Nampa-AFP-Reuters