Youth unemployment is a ‘critical threat’ to Africa — Tony Elumelu

The Chairman of the United Bank of Africa (UBA), Mr Tony Onyemaechi Elumelu, has called on African leaders to confront the problem of youth unemployment which is a “critical threat” to the continent.

Mr Elumelu, who is also the Chairman of the Transcorp and Heirs Holdings in Nigeria, said unemployment was a serious problem and a ‘time bomb’ waiting to explode because idle young people, when not fully engaged, misapplied themselves.

“Unemployment is a serious problem; it’s a time bomb waiting to just explode. I say this because the economists tell us that in 2020 we will have 120 million young Africans enter the job market and the capacity for Africa to create job employment will give us 50 million people so we will have a deficit.

So the question is how do we engage these people? That is going to be a major challenge,” he said.

He made these remarks during an interaction with the media in Accra after he had participated in the Shared Prosperity Forum.

The forum was in commemoration of the End Poverty Day in Accra. Other panellists included the President of the World Bank, Dr Jim Yong Kim, the President of the African Development Bank, Mr Akinwumi Adesina and the Minister of Education, Professor Naana Jane Opoku Agyemang.

‘We can end poverty’

He said Africa could end poverty by encouraging entrepreneurship, creating avenues of employment and engaging women.

With the abundance of natural resources, he said industrialisation and also fixing the energy problems confronting the continent were steps ahead in addressing poverty in Africa.

He explained that while industrialisation added value to businesses, adequate energy boosted production.

Improving governance and creating a conducive environment for business, he added, were other measures needed to boost the economy of the continent.

Notwithstanding the role of the government, Mr Elumelu said business democrats also had a role to play by supporting the youth to create wealth.

Entrepreneurship Programme

To this end, he said he had set up the Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme (TEEP) with seed money of $100 million to create 10,000 startups across Africa within the next 10 years.

The initiative, he said, was to grow businesses through skills training, mentoring, access to seed capital funding, information and membership in our Africa-wide alumni network.

The programme is also intended to create businesses that could generate at least 1,000,000 new jobs and contribute at least $10 billion in new annual revenues across Africa.