Employment Promotion as a Critical Part of Value Chain Development
The final webinar of the six parts series focuses on promoting employment along the value chain
Presenters
- Alfons Eiligmann, ValueLinks master trainer
- Kwame Yeboah, Assistant Professor at the International Development Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics, Michigan State University
Kwame Yeboah
Proceedings
Alfons Eiligmann shows how employment promotion is covered in the ValueLinks 2.0 Manual — introducing the various tools from the value chain selection in module 1 to data management and monitoring in module 11. He explains which types of improvements in employment can be achieved with value chain development, namely increased employment, better-paid employment, decent employment, improved employability and safer employment.
The tools that can be used to promote employment
- Improved business models of (small-scale) farming
- Innovative business models in processing, trading and services
- Entrepreneurship promotion
- Vocational training programs
- Public-Private Partnerships with an introduction of CSR standards
- Improvement of labour laws and regulations, active labour market policy
In his closing Alfons Eiligmann elaborates on potential tradeoffs, such as job losses due to the mechanization of value chains and the cutting-out of middlemen along value chains.
Presentation: Africa’s Agrifood System and Youth Employment — Trends and Drivers of Change
Kwame Yeboah shares the latest results of his team’s research on Africa’s evolving employment trends. He provides key figures and background information on Africa’s agrifood system and youth employment:
- A striking 62 % of people in Africa were below 25 years of age. While 11 million young people were expected to enter the labor market each year in sub-Saharan Africa until 2035, only a quarter of them would be able to find salaried jobs in the formal sector of the region.
- The biggest challenge for youth employment in Africa was the slow demographic transition that caused for a high labor force growth exceeding the job creation rate and the low educational level of the labor market entrants.
- Despite its declining employment shares, farming remained the largest single employer of the labor force and the majority of the economically active youth was engaged in farming.
- Africa’s economies were transforming with significant labor exiting from farming since the 2000s. However, there was a rapid growth in off-farm jobs within the agrifood system that was concentrated in commerce and distribution.
- The most significant contributing factors to job creation in Africa’s agrifood system were access to land, land degradation, level of reliance on food imports and climate change.
Key areas for policy action to promote youth employment, according to Kwame Yeboah:
- Promotion of broad-based agricultural productivity growth
- Strategic policies, such as public investments and reduction of policy barriers
- Creation of conditions for responsive youth employment policymaking
The presentation slides
Contact
- Karina Brenneis for the sector project Agricultural Trade and Value Chains: Karina.Brenneis@giz.de
- On behalf of the SNRD working group Agribusiness and Inclusive Value Chain Development, tandem partner Eberhard Krain (Eberhard.Krain@giz.de)
About the series
The webinar series was conducted together with the sector project Agricultural Trade and Value Chains, the SNRD Africa working group on Agribusiness and Inclusive Value Chain Development and the GIZ Sectoral Department (FMB).
Join the next session!
For details on each upcoming webinar, please check the events calendar. We post as soon as the next event is scheduled and details are available.
To be continued
The second webinar series is planned to start in September 2018.
