Programme Director, Future Leaders of Africa and Europe, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Lecture by Mxolisi NKOSI, Ambassador of South Africa to Belgium, Luxembourg and Head of Mission to the European Union to the Young Professionals in Foreign Policy (YPFP), Brussels, 16 June 2015. Programme Director, Future Leaders of Africa and Europe, Ladies and Gentlemen, I feel extremely honoured to have been asked by the organisers of the Young Professionals in Foreign Policy (YPFP) in Brussels to talk about the challenges and role of young people in Africa today. Our conversation this evening takes place on the occasion of the 39th anniversary of the Soweto Uprising. This was an epochal moment in the liberation struggle of South Africa, when young people braved the repressive Apartheid security machinery by engaging in massive demonstrations against the introduction of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in schools. Starting in Soweto, these demonstrations soon spread to the rest of country, capturing the world's imagination, and leading to calls for the imposition of sanctions against the Apartheid regime. The courageous act by the generation of 1976 gave new impetus to the overall political struggle against Apartheid, leading to the collapse of the system and the birth of a democratic dispensation in 1994 in South Africa. It is therefore fitting at this moment to pay homage to the martyrs of 1976 for bequeathing successive generations with a free, democratic, non-racial and non-sexist South Africa. This, they would not have achieved without the unwavering and active support of youth in the continent of Africa and the rest of world. In honour of this generation, the post- Apartheid democratic state declared June 16 National Youth Day, a public holiday in South Africa. Tonight, the I have been asked to share my thoughts on the "Role of the Youth in development and security in Africa". I propose to first dispense with some conceptual questions before delving on the context and the role of the youth in this regard. Some conceptual questions. In a seminal treatise entitled "Running While Others Walk", African development scholar Thandika Mkandawire, identifies two strands of the post-world War II development discourse: namely, the Truman version, for which development involved both geopolitical considerations and humanitarianism, and the Bandung Conference version that saw development in terms of catching up, emancipation and the right to development. The most astute critics of developmentalism focus their attention on the Truman version of developmentalism so that much of the criticism of developmental efforts and the so-called impasse of development was about the idea that the North was entrusted with the task of developing the South in its image. These critics pay much less attention to the other source of developmentalism as an emancipatory project. Consequently, the issues they deal with revolve around the moral premises of helping distant strangers, the problems of the imposition of western narratives and practices, problems of elite capture, etc. I would like to propose that development and the catch up aspirations driving it are not foreign

impositions but necessary African responses to its numerous socio-economic challenges. I will come back to this later. Concerning security, the other element of our topic tonight, I subscribe to the view that this concept has for too long been interpreted narrowly: as security of territory from external aggression, or as protection of national interests in foreign policy or as global security from the threat of a nuclear holocaust. It has been related more to nation-states than to people.... Forgotten were the legitimate concerns of ordinary people.... for whom security means protection from the threat of disease, hunger, unemployment, crime, social conflict, political repression, and environmental hazards. You will no doubt agree with me that these unconventional security threats are not new to Africa, they have been a fixture of the continent for a long while. In contrast to the increasingly discredited state-centric orthodoxy" of security, the UNDP offered a paradigm with a much broader definition, calling it human security and portraying it as a people- centred (rather than state-centred) approach whose principal components were freedom from fear and freedom from want. This kind of security offers safety from chronic threats like hunger, disease, and political repression, as well as protection from sudden and hurtful disruptions in the patterns of daily life. Security and development are now recognised as intertwined, two sides of the same coin. The nexus between security and development is becoming increasingly indisputable particularly in Africa. Most of the world's states that have experienced violent conflict in the past decades are impoverished, with high levels of underdevelopment and inequality. Because the nature of conflict has fundamentally changed in the post-cold War era, contemporary conflicts are increasingly internal, intense and protracted and their social, economic and environmental consequences are considerable and long-lasting. The symbiotic link between security and development was underscored by former UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan when he stated, In an increasingly interconnected world, progress in the areas of development, security and human rights must go hand in hand. There will be no development without security and no security without development. And both development and security also depend on respect for human rights and the rule of law. The shift from the state to the human as the locus of development has created objective conditions for us to confront the development malaise in the continent, manifested in factors such as declining standards of living, HIV/AIDS, unemployment and environmental degradation. Our efforts of launching Africa into a new age of development should be comprehensive, addressing the three dimensions of development, namely economic, social and environmental. How has Africa fared since independence? In their first decade of independence, African countries enjoyed quite respectable rates of growth, at least when compared with the anaemic rates of growth of the following decades. Of the twenty fastest growing economies, nine were African and only three of them were mineral rich countries. For the period between 1960 and 1975, African economies grew at the rate of 5.7 per cent.

However in the mid 70s Africa began to slide into 'the lost decades'. The 1980s and 1990s were characterised by economic stagnation, poverty, hunger and dictatorships as well as by violent conflicts in Somalia, Sierra Leone, Liberia and the Great Lakes as epitomised by the genocide in Rwanda. Faced with the onset of an economic crisis huge foreign debts and declining social standards and the failure of the international financial institutions' free market policies, African countries tried to reverse these trends by calling for a new international economic order (NIEO) through which they could craft self-reliant, culturally relevant and state-driven development policies. In such a context, African leaders found it necessary to transform the focus of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) from political liberation to economic development. Hence, throughout the 1980s and 1990s African governments went on to design a series of pan-african development approaches which they felt were relevant to the needs of their people. These initiatives included: the Lagos Plan of Action (1980), the Abuja Treaty (1991) and the Cairo Agenda (1994) amongst others. Enter NEPAD Marking a radical departure from the failed structural adjustment programmes of modernisation and the attendant falling growth rates, 'a new breed of African leaders' entered the 21st century with proclamations of a re-birth for Africa, an African Renaissance. This season of hope and optimism was encapsulated in the vision of the African century, the belief or hope that the 21st century will bring peace, prosperity and cultural revival to Africa.The vision found concrete expression in the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), the continent's home-grown blueprint for socio-economic development. Africa Rising For decades, the dominant African narrative in the media was of famine, war, and disease. Recently, in light of a renewed economic upturn and a relative reduction in famine and disease across most of the continent, the narrative has changed to one of hope. The Economist and TIME magazine have both published lead articles called Africa Rising, complete with positive economic statistics and photos of children flying rainbow kites in the shape of the African continent. We have moved from pictures of starving children with flies crawling across their faces to pictures of cranes lifting concrete blocks. The idea of Africa s rise comes from a straightforward interpretation of high growth rates and increased foreign investment in parts of the continent. As The Economist s piece pointed out, over the past decade, six of the world's ten fastest-growing countries were African. According to McKinsey & Company, real GDP in Africa grew twice as fast in the 00s as it did in the 80s and 90s.

Africa has been recording impressive annual growth rates of around six percent across sub-sahara since 2000. Recent growth in Africa and rapid increases in Asia-Africa trade and investment have taken place against a backdrop of global austerity. As people struggle desperately in southern Europe, gas and oil resources are driving a new boom. Africa's moment coincides with the so-called youth bulge. The continent has the fastest-growing and most youthful population in the world. It is home to more than 200 million young people. According to the UN (2012), Africa s 2011 population was estimated at 1.05 billion and is expected to double by 2050. About 70 percent of its population is 30 years of age or younger. In 2011, youth between 15 and 24 years of age, constituted 21 percent of the more than 1 billion people in Africa, whereas another 42 percent was less than 15 years old. The latter is a function of high fertility rates in the continent. Youth unemployment Although youth constitute about 37 percent of Africa s labor force, they account for about 60 percent of total unemployment, thus making employment creation one of the top priorities for the continent. Increasing levels of unemployment amidst sustained levels of economic growth point to insufficient attention paid to the creation of employment opportunities for young people. The continent needs to create 10 million jobs per year to be able to cope with youth unemployment. This cannot be achieved with commodity exports alone but with renewed emphasis on transformation through manufacturing and industrialisation. The demographic trajectory could compound the problem as the pressure to create new jobs will increase markedly over the coming decades, unless the demographic dividend is realised. This is a stage that the most successful developing economies experience. Indeed, as much as one-third of East Asia's economic miracle was due to demographic change. Three major factors account for these high levels of unemployment. First, although there has been an upward trend in the average economic growth rate in Africa in the last decade, the growth rate has been generally low compared with the rest of the world. Secondly, Africa s economic growth has been powered by the exploitation of mineral resources, whose production tends to be capital intensive and thus creates few employment opportunities. The choice of capital-intensive production techniques is itself a function of factor market distortion policies. Third, the high youth unemployment rate is also due to skills mismatch the educational system produces skills that are not demanded by the labour market. In a sense, the educational system is based on curricula this irrelevant and that is pedagogy inappropriate for the economy. In addition to high unemployment rates, young people in Africa face longer spells of unemployment than adults, regardless of their level of education. In Tunisia and Egypt, about 25 percent of university graduates remain unemployed three years after graduation. High unemployment rates combined with long durations of unemployment imply that youth either lose the skills they acquired through education or lose their attachment to the labor market completely. The long-term consequences of high and persistent youth

unemployment are a high incidence of poverty among youth and their inability to contribute to the development of Africa. Youth poverty A further consequence of the massive and persistent youth unemployment rate is a high incidence of youth poverty in Africa. The UN and the World Bank estimated that in 2008 more than 70 percent of the youth in Africa lived on less than $2 a day, and 46 percent lived on less than $1.25 a day. The incidence of youth poverty is highest among females in rural areas. Migration Harrowing scenes of bodies floating on the Mediterranean Sea, overloaded boats sinking and some rescued, frightened migrants, mainly youth arrested and deported have become common place. The tragedy of the migration crisis that we are witnessing on almost a daily basis these days is largely due to socio-economic push factors such as lack of opportunity, poverty, and political instability and insecurity. The crisis of migration requires a multidimensional response with short to medium-term and long-term interventions. Within the framework of the multilateral system, countries that are the source of migration, transit countries and those that are the destination of migration should develop appropriate responses to address this phenomenon. Youth in conflict Without any doubt, the high incidence of youth unemployment and poverty in Africa poses serious problems for social stability and peace. Poor and unemployed youth are more likely to be the foot-soldiers in civil conflicts. The World Bank and Human Rights Watch have estimated that more than 50 percent of the youth who joined rebel groups cited unemployment as the reason. A number of recent events bear testimony to how high rates of youth unemployment and poverty can generate social instability and conflict, namely the Arab Spring; armed conflicts in Liberia, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo; and the growing popularity of the terrorist group Boko Haram in Nigeria and Al Shabaab in Somalia. Continental responses In order to create a framework for youth development in the continent, the AU Heads of State Summit meeting in Banjul adopted the African Youth Charter (AYC) on 2 July 2006, which subsequently entered into force on 8 August 2009. The Charter is a political and legal document which serves as the strategic framework for African States, giving direction for youth empowerment and development at continental, regional and national levels. The AYC aims to strengthen, reinforce and consolidate efforts to empower young people through meaningful youth participation and equal partnership in driving Africa's development agenda. The Charter is complemented by the Youth Decade Plan of Action 2009-2018 which is a roadmap for the effective popularisation, ratification and implementation of the AYC. With a view to encourage member states to accelerate their efforts dealing the numerous challenges faced by young people, particularly unemployment and poverty, the AU declared 2008 as the Year of African Youth.

Most recently, at the Jubilee Summit in a May 2013 African Heads of State adopted Vision 2063, which calls for the creation of jobs and employment opportunities for Africa s growing and youthful population. An important aspiration of many African countries for today and the future is therefore the creation of productive employment. In this regard, the most telling transformation for Africa would entail the creation of a vast number of productive jobs, especially in the private sector. Innovation, entrepreneurship and enhancement of people s skills will be needed to raise the competitiveness of Africa s economies. Moreover, developing human capital, relaxing migration laws and encouraging talent circulation are means to unleashing the potential of Africa s population. Further, greater education and employment opportunities for youth and women would raise Africa s labour productivity, widen the tax base and promote innovation and competitiveness in business. A fundamental transformation in the productivity of agriculture would allow the rural populations to enjoy a many-fold increase in incomes while also making farms profitable. Education With regards to education, there has been significant improvement in access to primary education and literacy across Africa in the last decade. According to the UN 2010 MDGs Report, the net primary education enrolment rate in the Central, Western, Eastern and Southern African regions combined increased from 58 percent in 1999 to 76 percent in 2008, while in North Africa, it increased from 86 percent in 1999 to 94 percent in 2008. However, the increase in primary education enrolment rates has not necessarily been followed by an equivalent increase in secondary and tertiary education rates, especially for young women and girls. When it comes to tertiary education among youth populations in Africa, the gross enrolment rate is very low. In most African countries, the age hierarchy embodied in the culture has meant that there are limited opportunities for youth to express themselves and to meaningfully participate in national socio-economic and political discourse. A broad-based participation of the citizenry, including youth, would enhance good governance in addition to improving democracy. Inspired by the spirit of the generation of 1976, and their peers the world over, African youth should take active part in the development of their countries, acting as agents for peace, development and prosperity. All the evidence suggests that it is in African countries emerging from conflict that the problem of youth unemployment is most pressing. The reintegration of ex-combatants, including child soldiers, in post-conflict countries is crucial, and providing meaningful employment opportunities is absolutely critical if the peace dividend is to be realised. Most African countries have the potential to reap the demographic dividend. However, taking advantage of the opportunity depends on a conducive policy environment. African countries should above make effective investments in human capital to ensure a healthy and educated workforce, and facilitate inclusive growth. Conclusion

We expect 2015 to be the year for the multilateral system to launch a new bold agenda for development that reflects both continuity and change. Young people should be an integral part of this agenda, starting with the Conference on Financing for Development to be held in Addis Abeba next month, the Post-2015 Development Agenda to be adopted in New York in September, and the Climate Change Conference in Paris in December. Future generations will judge relevance of these all important summits on the extent to which they to respond to the challenges of youth unemployment, education and training, poverty eradication, access to health and gender equality. I would like end by encouraging you to ensure that your countries take urgent steps to develop youth policies. In the words of the late past President of the ANC, Oliver Tambo, "The children of any nation are its future. A country, a movement, a person that does not value its youth and children does not deserve its future." The future is yours, seize it!