Annex XV.Cross-cutting Themes Annex XVI.
-
Private sector development is an important cross-cutting theme of this initiative. The private sector is often overlooked as a partner, but as the sector that creates jobs, it is key to the region’s youth challenge. In countries transitioning out of conflict, the private sector is also a vital stabilizing force, creating alternatives to conflict economies founded on predatory or illicit activity.43
-
The private sector needs to create millions of productive, well-paying jobs, especially for youth, to keep pace with the demographic transition and increase stability in the region. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) need to improve their productivity and competitiveness to become local suppliers to exporters, participate in extractive value chains, and benefit from the economic growth generated by manufacturing and agricultural exports in Ethiopia and Kenya, and by extractives in Uganda, South Sudan, and Sudan. Any job creation program should also include safety nets, since the average growth of the formal and informal private sector does not generate enough economic opportunities to absorb the number of youth entering the job market.
-
Priority programs for job creation under this initiative will include investments in supporting regional infrastructure—particularly for ICT, border communities, and service delivery. A second priority will be to invest in skills, especially for the extractives and maritime industries, and to develop links among producers, traders, and consumers. In line with the recommendations of the World Development Report 2011, Conflict, Security and Development, this initiative proposes a bold approach to drawing together the capacities of development agencies, the private sector, foundations, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to galvanize investments in countries where high unemployment and social disengagement contribute to the risks of conflict.
Annex XVIII.4.2. Youth
-
The challenge of youth employment in the HoA is not amenable to easy solutions. The key employment issue is that productivity, and therefore earnings, are low, while aspirations, especially those of youth, are high. Addressing the challenge in any of the Horn countries will require country-specific analysis.
-
As the nature of jobs created will depend partly on the structure of growth, agriculture and extractives look certain to be key industries. Elsewhere in Africa the extractives sector has failed to sufficiently increase the number of wage jobs that youth most desire, though there are prospects for reversing this trend, not least through promoting local providers of goods and services to the industry. Likewise, the largely unexploited opportunities in farming offer great possibility at a time of high global prices for agricultural commodities, and rising local and regional demand for food. In agriculture—unlike other sectors—the projection of new jobs (in low-income and lower-middle-income countries) is not based on demand for labor in the sector. Instead it represents the labor force that does not find a wage job or start a business.44
-
The employment challenge is not to create jobs in the formal sector, important as that may be, but to increase the productivity of the almost 80 percent of the workforce who are in the informal sector.45 Raising the productivity of smallholder farmers in remote borderlands, pastoralists, and displaced peoples—which was the key to structural transformation in Asia and Latin America—is precisely what will enable the formal sector to develop and thrive and create jobs for the region’s youth.
Annex XIX.4.3. Security
-
A key aim of the initiative is to bring increased international attention to the security/development nexus. Countries in the region could enjoy much greater levels of economic interdependence and prosperity if a more benign regional security environment could be achieved. This underlines the importance the AUC, IGAD, UN, WBG,46 EU, and other partners attach to increasing efforts to integrate security and development issues. The EU has been a key supporter if the security agenda in the region: its 2011 Strategic Framework for the Horn of Africa underlines the need to address the links among insecurity, poverty, and governance. An EU Special Representative (EUSR) for the Horn has been appointed to contribute to the implementation of the Framework, working closely with the EUSR for Sudan and South Sudan.
-
The AUC is developing a regional approach to the challenges of peace and security in the HoA. At the behest of the AU Peace and Security Council (PSC) and in collaboration with IGAD, the EU, the UN, and other stakeholders, the AUC has initiated consultations that would lead to a regionally organized endeavor for peace, security, cooperation, and development in the HoA.47 At the latest meeting of the PSC in Nairobi, the AU expressed deep concern over the worsening scourge of terrorism and violent extremism in Africa and the growing linkages between terrorism and violent extremism, on the one hand, and transnational organized crime, on the other—notably in the areas of drug and human trafficking, money laundering, illicit trafficking in firearms—and the serious threats to peace, security, stability, and development. The PSC also commended IGAD and other RECs for the important role they are playing, particularly in developing regional strategies and common action to prevent and combat terrorism and violent extremism. There is a deepening partnership between the UN Security Council and the PSC.48
-
A framework to align partner actions in the security-development nexus in the HoA would need to build on ongoing high-level and technical partnerships. Such a framework could be overseen by IGAD and have three key pillars: (a) peace-building, (b) crime and violence, and (c) porous borders and marginalization.
Share with your friends: |
