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‘African govts yet to unlock continent’s potential in agribusiness’

The Partnership for African Social and Governance Research (PASGR) has decried the failure of African countries to fully explore agribusiness as the backbone of Africa’s growth.

The research conducted across seven countries in Africa discovered that despite agribusiness being one of the five growing countries in the world, several African governments were yet to explore agribusiness’ potential to fully unlock Africa’s growth potential.

Programme Officer, Research and Policy Uptake, Joel Otieno, who presented the report of the findings held in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal and Uganda, said it had become more imperative, in today’s world for African governments to give attention to promoting agribusiness and ICT development.

Furthermore, the study identified the need for governments on the continent to really understand the centrality of young people in the development of Africa and give them requisite opportunities.

The study further showed that it was imperative for African countries to optimize the massive population of the youth, and empower them to realise their potential, thereby positively impacting the development of their various societies.

Espousing further the findings, Otieno said contrary to perceptions that young people are lazy, he said youths were found to be industrious, resilient, hardworking, and dynamic if they get the opportunities.

Otieno said: “What is important is the centrality of young people in the development of Africa and being the largest population, we understand that young people have the potential to unlock Africa’s growth and development.

“One of the common things that run across the seven countries is how youths are taking responsibility for themselves as opposed to the traditional understanding of young people as lazy, people who want to benefit from work they have not done. We find that youths are industrious, hardworking and are also becoming dynamic in the way they create opportunities for themselves.

“We also see a common trend in how youths define dignifying and fulfilling work in terms of work that gives them good pay, remunerative and gainful payment, security and job satisfaction, and job safety.

“What we have also seen is how young people are advocating for businesses, how they want to start their own entrepreneurial activities, run their own businesses.

“There are five top growing sectors. One of them that is key and still needs to be enhanced is agribusiness because it remains the backbone of Africa’s growth. This is one area that is yet to be explored fully to unlock Africa’s growth potentials and this is across the seven countries.”

Speaking in the same vein, PASGR’s Principal Investigator, Nigeria, Dr Babatunde Ojebuyi, called on the Nigerian government to give more opportunities to youths and include them in their policies drafting so as not to be seen as imposing policies on the youths.

He added that the study showed that Nigerian youths are resilient, have a lot of aspirations, and simply want to have dignifying and fulfilling jobs where their lives are secure and they can live out their potential.

“They have challenges of insecurity, lack of government policies that focus on the youths. Youths are not really included in the government’s formation of policies. It is a top-down approach. Opportunities are not really there for them. They are resilient, they have a lot of coping strategies but they don’t have opportunities,” Ojebuyi added.

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