Giving Youth a Future is Key to Rebuilding Somalia

After years of conflict and instability, impoverished Somalia faces a daunting list of development and security challenges. This arid country is vulnerable to famine and disease, the long coastline is a haven for pirates and the clan militias remains a potent threat.

The biggest development challenge that we have in Somalia is the youth, other contenders are high mortality rates, low literacy, refugee problems, political instability, violence, disease and lack of schools or often no schools at all.

In part it’s a matter of sheer numbers. There are a lot of young people in Somalia – best estimates suggest that over 60 % of the country’s near 11 million-strong population are 24 or under. Around 43% of the total population are under 14 years of age. This could be an advantage for Somalia’s reconstruction and development, but only if the youth issues are addressed properly.

Somalia needs huge investment in basic social services such as quality education and access to healthcare to meet the needs of this young population, and it can’t happen fast enough.

The Youth are dissatisfied to the extent that they risk their lives to embark on ‘Tahrib’, the perilous migrant journey to Europe. It is often the country’s brightest hopes, those with university educations and career ambitions, who see Tahrib as their only way of securing a better future.

There is a substantial gap between young people’s skills and employers’ requirements. Even among those who have received technical and vocational education and training (TVET) in Puntland, only 27% of youth/employer combinations are a match by stated requirements, Meanwhile the unemployment rate for youth in Somalia is around 67%, according to the ILO’s 2013 Labour Force Survey for Somalia. Somali development and humanitarian indicators are among the lowest in the world and over 60% of youth have intentions to leave the country for better livelihood opportunities.

 

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