Prime Minister Raila Odinga is welcomed by members of clergy at Kabare Girls High school during commissioning of  Anglican University College.
PHOTO/ NJOROGE KABURO

East Africa lawmakers urged
to tackle unemployment crisis

72 percent of the

unemployed population
in Kenya is below 30

years of age

SPECIAL REPORT BY XINHUA CORRESPONDENT

NJOROGE KABURO

NAIROBI (Xinhua) -- East Africa lawmakers should tackle unemployment and under-employment which are key crises that need the immediate attention of legislators and other stakeholders, a senior regional official said on Friday.

East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) Speaker Abdirahin Abdi 72 percent of the unemployed population in Kenya is below 30 years of age.

“In Burundi for example, the youth stand at 51.1 percent, 14 percent of whom are unemployed. Statistics further reveal that only 11 percent of school graduates can acquire jobs in the public sector,” Abdi said during the official opening of a seminar organized by EALA in collaboration with the Association of European Parliamentarians With Africa (AWEPA) in Nairobi .

The regional speaker lauded the five members states for enhancing Universal Primary Education and urged them to look at secondary education.

“ Uganda which was the first country in the region to initiate Universal Primary Education in 1993 has moved a notch higher and is well considering free secondary education – a move that should be replicated across the region,” he said.

Abdi told the two-day seminar themed Towards Parliamentary Action for Integration of Children and Youth in East African Societies that the East Africa region and the globe to ensure issues of children and the youth come to the fore and remain central to development.

Such a move he reiterates shall trigger progress towards realization of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Political Co-ordinator of AWEPA Holger Gustafsson noted that his organization would continue to build the capacity of legislators globally to enable them carry out their mandate more effectively.

“As children become older, they need to access the labour market to enable them progress,” Gustafsson said.

He added that the presence of youth underscored the need for training and harnessing of skills. Gustafsson called for the enactment of legislation on youth and the harmonization of policies across East Africa .

The Clerk of the Pan-African Parliament (PAP), Zwelethu Madasa said his continental Assembly would at its global congress on the Diaspora scheduled for May 21-30 consider and discuss issues of the youth.

Deputy Speaker of the Economic Commission of West African States (ECOWAS) Parliament, Sere Saran Sereme said the continent’s population constituted over 60 percent of the young, terming it a potential available for Africa .

However, strategies in place undermine the exploitation of the same, Sereme lamented, calling for the re-engineering and adoption of new laws that protect the youth.

The Deputy Speaker noted that young people without jobs had led to chaos and social crises and it was apparent for legislators to put up policies.

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African lawmakers stress
youth empowerment

By Njoroge Kaburo NAIROBI (Xinhua) -- A Parliamentary meeting ended on Sunday in Nairobi , Kenya with a call for a long-term vision for youth empowerment.

The two-day meeting also saw lawmakers call on the private and public sectors to avail more opportunities to the youth in order to develop their skills and enable them to gain accessibility to income.

In South Africa , a national youth policy framework is in place and a National Youth Act was instituted in 2008 to cater for the youth, participants say.

“In varying degrees, young people must be engaged to stimulate their development. We must look at existing legislation and encourage legislators to provide oversight in existing programmes, “ Michael Sudarkasa, CEO of the South African Based Africa Business Group, said in a joint statement issued in Nairobi on Sunday.

The parliamentarians were urged to support to the empowerment of young people as part of efforts to promote regional integration and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Parliamentarians were further tasked to set benchmarks that promote equal opportunities for the girl child and to enact legislation that stimulates economic development in relation to youth empowerment.

The meeting, with a theme of “Towards Parliamentary Action for Integration of Children and Youth in East African Societies”, was attended by legislators from the East Africa Legislative Assembly (EALA), the South Africa Development Community (SADC) and the West African bloc ECOWAS.

Parliamentarians from Sweden and Ireland were also invited to attend the forum.

EALA lawmaker Safina Kwekwe said the assembly would continue to ensure the provisions of an East African treaty to address problems of youth and marginalized groups.

She called for the establishment of an EAC Youth Initiative as an outfit to bring together all the aspirations of the youth under one umbrella.

“From the legislative standpoint, a comprehensive youth development policy leading to an Act in the EAC region is necessary,” Kwekwe said.

The legislators also called for the immediate reform of the education systems to ensure official training institutes offer modules responding to vocational needs of the youth.

The meeting was organized by EALA in collaboration with the Association of European Parliamentarians with Africa (AWEPA).

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