WEFA 2014: ILO calls for new partnership to fight poverty and social exclusion

ABUJA (ILO News) – ILO’s Assistant Director-General and Regional Director for Africa, Aeneas Chuma called for greater cooperation among Governments, Employers and Workers to fight unemployment and promote inclusive growth in the African region.

“We need greater cooperation among Governments, Employers and Workers to fight unemployment and under-employment; we need to promote inclusive growth and social inclusion and social dialogue has provided a firm platform for such collaboration”, Chuma said at the World Economic Forum on Africa held in Abuja, Nigeria.

“African youths are grappling with unemployment and under-employment despite their education. Employers need skills that are relevant to their industries; they see African youths as being educated yet not possessing employable skills that the employers need”, he underscored.

Aeneas Chuma emphasized that one of the major challenges facing Africa is the limited attention devoted to the importance of demand and supply. “Perhaps, a lot of our countries have not paid attention to the importance of aligning the supply of labour with the demand of certain skills”, he stressed.

The theme of 2014 World Economic Forum for Africa is “Forging inclusive growth, creating jobs” with a platform for regional and global leaders from business, government and civil society to discuss how we can tackle unemployment and come up with innovative and lasting solutions to ensure that growth does not leave out a significant part of the population such as youths and women of the continent.

According to the ILO official, “there has to be a link between the world of work and world of learning so that by the time our young people leave school they do have skills that employers can utilize because the complaint is that there are jobs but no skills”.

Mr Chuma reiterated that as an organization that is concerned about jobs creation and inclusive economic growth, the ILO will engage other stakeholders participating at WEF on Africa through experience sharing on how the global unemployment challenge can be tackled.

Equally, the ILO Regional Director highlighted that Nigeria was extremely important, not just to Africa, but to the world adding that Nigeria was a significant economy and the largest economy in Africa based on the rebasing done recently.

However, despite a progress in productivity in some organizations, workers’ wages do not match the progress in productivity as many workers get less than they ought to earn thereby worsening the problem of poverty. According to Mr Chuma, “workers’ wages had not kept pace with productivity. People work harder but are still poor” and the ILO has drawn the attention of government and employers to this challenge for consultation.

Focus on the youth

Speaking to CNBC Africa, the Regional Director for Africa restated that “the youth are relatively well educated than the previous generation and they face unemployment at a time when the African economy has grown significantly in the last decade”.

Currently, the question being asked is why Africa records significant growth, yet unemployment is still persisting.

African youths are grappling with unemployment and under-employment. Aeneas Chuma , ILO Regional Director for Africa

“The level of unemployment in Africa generally is huge but what is worse is the level of underemployment and the particular aspect of it is that most of the unemployed are very young people and relatively well educated too.”, he explained.

“The big debate is around what type of growth are we seeking here. We need to invest in the type of growth that generates jobs and these jobs have to be decent jobs that pay wages and reduce poverty but we need to make special investments around needs of the youth and women”, Chuma clarified.


“The African population is very young and can be approached as a tremendous resource for a growing continent but it can also threaten social stability if we’ve got these large armies of young Africans, well educated, able to work and they are not given opportunities”, the ILO Assistant Director General concluded.

For more detailed information and media queries, please contact ILO Country Office in Abuja – [email protected] Tel: + Tel: + 234-8095995926, 234-8023169359 or ILO Africa Communication team (www.ilo.org/africa): [email protected], Tel: + 251/115-444415 or + 251/911-218115