Whereas Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalgn – the unpretentious policy chief of the nation, with an increasing disposable power – was declaring the agenda of inclusive economic development, at the various events of the 50th year anniversary of the African Union (AU), Zenebu Tadesse was nowhere to be seen. The EPRDFite who leads the ‘too-big-to-fail’ ministry of Women, Children & Youth Affairs (MoWCYA), was not the preferred minister to accompany Hailemariam in the event that saw the participation of President Dalima Rousseff of Brazil and the Secretary of State John Kerry of the United States; alongside a further 80 heads of state and governments from Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America.
Hailemariam’s speeches, however, restated a continental concern that continues to be within the entrustment of Zenebu, an executive council member of the Amhara National Democratic Movement (ANDM) – a member of the ruling EPRDF. With Africa confronted by a huge bulge in youth – estimated to be close to 400 million, a large portion of whom are unemployed – the inclusive economic agenda becomes pertinent.
It is exactly this point that Hailemariam echoed in his speeches, delivered on various occasions of the celebration. Such is the extent that the youth has grown tired of being labelled as future leaders, Hailemariam noted, African governments must change their youth narratives to a more proactive one.
Transforming the narrative, closer to home, is the task assigned to Zenebu, who was educated in organisational leadership and economics, in the United States and India, respectively. But, it is by no means an easy task.
In their favour, the EPRDFites have already done a lot in creating job and business opportunities for the youth, through their Micro & Small Enterprises (MSEs) strategy. By linking it with the urban redevelopment and housing strategies, they have initiated an amazing entrepreneurial momentum in the nation, whose business environment was, for a long time, bound to family enterprises. Latest figures show that average employment creation through this linkage has reached 58,035.
Yet, the road ahead for the policymakers seems to be long and tough. At stake for them is embracing the 46.3 million youth population of the nation, within the undergoing economic activities. It also entails curbing the ever-increasing unemployment of the youth, which stands at 22.3pc and 6.7pc in urban and rural Ethiopia, respectively.
Unfortunately, the EPRDFites have merged the affairs of the youth with those of women and children, under Zenebu’s portfolio. That, in itself, seems to have dissolved the issue unnecessarily. Coupled with the reorientation of global policy attention to the other two endeavours of the Ministry, the institutional merger seems to have thrown the concerns of the youth into the shadows.
Missing in both Hailemariam’s speech and Zenebu’s assignment, however, is the political empowerment of the youth. A reflection to the grand gap within the policy matrix of African states, creating a generation of politically empowered youth to serve as future leaders is afforded much less governmental attention.
Partly, the omission resulted from the focus of governments on economic growth – the one element that continues to fetch a sizeable price among African policymakers. The inclination towards economic growth seems to have made states biased towards resources. Hence, the latest supposition of youth, as a vital resource of a given nation.
It is this economic bias that was reflected within the speeches of Hailemariam. It might all seem reasonable in this era of ‘Africa rising’ – representing the awakening of the giant continent with huge resources to base its economic growth on. But, it fails to account for sustainability.
Sustainable economic growth involves creating a flexible mix of policies that help to create wealth and distribute it within a society. Benefits from economic growth are expected to be shared equitably among the different sectors of the population. Since an economy essentially relies on its working population – the youth – its distributive arrangements need to also recognise the same.
Evidently, the ultimate power to made decisions on the policy mixes lays not in the hands of economists, but rather, politicians. This close nexus of economics and politics shifts the entire equation in the favour of politics.
Creating political superstructures that could make economic policies itself is not enough to sustain economic development. It is rather their accountability to the broader public that enables them to endure changes in policies.
If anything, the economic policies that Hailemariam preached to his Africa counterparts could not bring sustainable benefits, unless an enduring accountability is implanted within the political superstructures, in the form of broad-based participation. Economic policies that aim to support the youth, therefore, ought to encourage their participation within the different tiers of political superstructures.
Both Africa and Ethiopia have enough experience with policy failures, brought about by differences in objectives between the state and the public. Under the popular programmes of the flagship global intervention – dubbed the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), of the 1980s, promoted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) – for instance, Africa has lost a great deal of its productivity to abrupt liberalisation and the related social disruption. Ethiopia, for its part, has experienced a loss of productivity during the first five decades of development planning; only ending at the first plan under the Revolutionary Democrats.
At the base of these historic failures dwells the lack of ownership of the planned economic activities. This, eventually, resulted from the distance between the intended beneficiaries of the plans and the planners themselves.
Balancing the rhetoric and the reality seems to be the pertinent challenge for Zenebu and her colleagues at the MoWCYA. At stake is enabling the bulging youth population of the nation to benefit from its economic progress, and empower them to take part in the political decisions.
Overlooking the importance of creating a flexible political structure, which supports the youth in experiencing and assuming decision making, at the expense of economic growth, is, by no means, sustainable. After all, sustainable economic development requires a stable political system as its base. No political system could be stable with a neglected youth.
Even if Hailemariam has walked a rare road in recognising the importance of youth in today’s economic sphere, his omission on the political side of the equation could not be equally recognised. It rather represents a crucial missing link within the very government he leads, and that of his peers around Africa.
Establishing the missing link is a pertinent challenge that the EPRDFites, including Zenebu, ought to strive towards. It is only when the nation is able to create a critical mass of politically empowered youth, flexible superstructures that could allow the youth to compete for leadership and a political culture that considers political maturity as an essential ingredient of sustainable development, that it could preserve its economic growth for a long time, in order to reduce poverty and ensure structural transformation.
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