The effective ways for government to engages indigenous and reduce poverty in the state

Аннотация

Rapidly rising demand for food fuelled PUBLISHED 11 February 2025 by population growth, urbanisation and income VOLUME Vol.07 Issue02 2025 growth offers enormous opportunities for employment creation in the agri-food sector in Sub- CITATION Saharan Africa (SSA): the sector has the potential to Fatima Umar Rahis. (2025). The effective ways for government to be a driver of economic trans- formation. This policy engages indigenous and reduce poverty in the state. The American Journal of Social Science and Education Innovations, 7(02), 39–44. brief highlights the main results from a GIZ- https://doi.org/10.37547/tajssei/Volume07Issue02-06 supported study of the evolving employment dynamics in SSA’s agri-cultural value chains by Michigan State University. Three main pathways are COPYRIGHT described that provide job opportunities in © 2025 Original content from this work may be used under the agricultural value chains and in the non-farm terms of the creative commons attributes 4.0 License. sectors. Further, the study summarizes key entry points for investment and policy actions to promote inclusive, competitive and productive agri-food systems generating employment opportunities and contributing to economic growth and transformation. In order to fully capture employment and income growth opportunities in SSA’s agricultural value chains, investment is required in the following five key areas: 1. Broad- based agricultural productivity growth; 2. Information and communication technologies (ICT) and complementary research and development (R&D);3. Education and skill development;4. Conditions for responsive policymaking on youth employment issues; and5. Interventions that reduce fertility rates and speed up the demographic transition. KEYWORDS: Economic growth and transformation, Information and communication technologies (ICT), Education and skill development. INTRODUCTION: The Role of Agriculture in Rural Employment Creation SSA has the world’s youngest and fastest growing population. By 2050, the The American Journal of Social Science and Education Innovations 39 https://www.theamericanjournals.com/index.php/tajssei The American Journal of Social Science and Education Innovations population is predicted to double. Hence, estimated This policy brief hints to key entry points for 440 million young Africans will reach working age by investment and policy actions to promote inclusive, 2030 (Pesche et al. 2016). Evidence suggests that competitive and productive agri-food systems to even under the most favourable projections only 25 generate employment opportunities and contribute % of the new workers will receive a chance to work to economic growth and transformation. Pathways in the formal sector of the economy. This for Job Creation and Economic Transformation No unprecedented demographic trend creates single economic sector has the potential to create pressure on SSA’s food production systems which employment opportunities to all (young) Africans are already struggling to ensure food security. In entering the labour market, and therefore different additi-on, urbanisation and income growth are structural trans-formation pathways are required. fuelling the demand for food as well as for more SSA’s economic performance over the past decades diverse and high-quality agricultural products such has opened up opportunities for well-educated and as meat, milk and horticulture. However, due to skilled individuals by shifting employment from prevailing low productivity levels, SSA’s agriculture farming to productive and remunerative non-farm has not kept pace with population dynamics. This sectors. Further-more, the on-going had lead to an increased reliance on food imports transformational changes in the demand for food whileat the same time intra-African agricultural and agricultural products has created new trade has increased as well, but still at a marginally incentives for investment in agriculture, low level (Figure 1). These developments are also transforming parts of the labour force into recognised by the G20 intheir work stream on youth successful farmers. This is especially the case among employment (World Bank Group and IFAD a relatively entrepreneurial class of individuals, who 2017).Rural areas represent a space of opportunity, have access to productive resources (e.g. land, in which many rural youth can find a pros-pect to finance, technologies and markets). However, a build their livelihoods (Fox et al. 2020). large segment of the labour force re-mains Further,agriculture still is the most important consigned to “poverty jobs”. Therefore, SSA’s long- employment sector in most SSA countries and term economic transformation and prosperity will crucial in determining the rate of employment depend on how well policies support the transit of growth in the farming, off-farm, and non-farm the “struggling” labour force participants into sector (Yeboah and Jayne 2018a). This offers new productive and well-payed jobs b