Include Africa’s Youth in Public Service

By Raphael Obonyo

First Published in Standard Kenya

Public service in Africa needs renewal and one way to do this is to develop internships as a pathway for young people into public service and retain them after training.

It is prudent that governments should absorb young people trained through internship into their agencies and departments to exploit the experience they have acquired as well as give them an opportunity to graduate the stipends they have been earning into salaries matching their skills.

By absorbing them, countries in Africa will slowly start laying strong foundation, of being seen as an equal employer for the thousands of desperate graduates that are leaving training institution every year to join an already choked job market.

Public service in Africa needs renewal and one way to do this is to develop internships as a pathway for young people into public service and retain them after training.

Governments should design internship programmes to offer opportunities for young college graduates to acquire and develop professional skills while gaining work experience.

Ignoring participation of the youth in public service and governance is not only bad for the youth, but is also a tragedy for a country seeking to develop such as ours. Youth in Africa have demonstrated huge potential; they have fresh ideas and immense energies- in essence, the country’s young population is a crucible of great creativity. https://auyouthenvoy.org/ayips/

Youth account for 60% of all African unemployed, according to the World Bank. The youth unemployment rate is an eyebrow-raising, and call for measures to confront the challenge of joblessness.

As has been noted; Africa’s growing youth population comes with high energy, creativity and talents, which are “also the key to future prosperity,” It now depends on whether African governments can grab the unemployment bull by the horns.

A recent report “Greater Inclusion of African Youth in Public Service and Governance” that was developed as part of a partnership between African Leadership Institute and African Union office of the Youth Envoy, calls for the need to develop an enabling environment to prepare and absorb youth into the public service.

Going by the report, the need to absorb youth into the public service becomes more imperative.

It is evident that most government ministries in Africa are currently facing a big shortfall in human resources. Most offices are crippled, record low levels of productivity as the majority of employees are over the age of 50 and most lack modern skills. Retaining trained interns will, therefore, help bridge that gap.

Trained interns have hands-on experience on tasks that are performed in various government offices. Retaining them will make service delivery efficient and cost effective. It will make it easy for the interns to take up duties without necessarily spending huge sums of money on training new employees.

Youth are tech-savvy and are well suited to drive efficient and effective service delivery through technology.

Absorption of youth into public service will serve to show that the government is committed to supporting the youth and keeping their promises.

Public service sector is crucial to building Africa We Want. Policies, legislations and laws should be geared towards mainstreaming the inclusion and involvement of young people

Africa, should recognise the importance of having youth participating in national development, and the importance of partnering with the youth for a responsive and sustainable public service.

Raphael Obonyo is a Policy Analyst. Email: raphojuma@hotmail.com