Africa

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Africas Skills and Labour Market Problems - A
private sector perspective
Foluso Phillips Phillips Consulting Group
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Understanding Africa
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Africa is all about 800 million people failing to
convert unquantifiable riches into phenomenal
wealth.
failing to add value
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Africas Realities

• Africa contributes only 1 of global gross
  domestic product
• Africa participates in a mere 2 of international
  trade
• Africas average growth rate in the 1990s was 2
• At 5 average growth rate per annum, Africa will
  be poorer than it currently is
• Africa will have to grow consistently at 7 per
  annum up to 2015 to just halve the number of its
  severely poor.

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Africa is a rich but not a wealthy continent

• Africa has the biggest flight of capital and
  skills in the world
• Less than 10 African countries have a GDP of over
  10b
• Africa is the leading recipient of development
  aid for more than 30 years (10bn in 1999)
• Least recipient of capital flows in past 15 years
• 50 of FDI goes into petroleum and mining.
• SA, Egypt, Algeria Nigeria account for over 50
  of trade volumes in Africa.

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NEPADNew Partnership for Africas
Development The African Unions Instrument of
Action

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EDUCATION drives it all!
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Public Spending in Education as share of GDP
9
8
7
6
6.5
6.0
5
share of GDP
5.4
4
4.2
3
3.7
3.0
2
0.7
UK
USA
S. Korea
Nigeria
France
Singapore
Honk Kong
2001
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Public Spending on Education as a Share of GDP
(AFRICA)
9
8
7
7.6
7.1
6
5
share of GDP
5.0
4
4.2
3
3.6
2
2.6
0.7
Kenya
Ghana
Nigeria
Uganda
S. Africa
Coted Ivore
Zimbabwe
2001
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Nigerian Governments Budgetary Allocation to
Education
45
40
35
40.0
30
Allocation
25
20
15
17.6
10
12.6
11.10
10.3
7.2
5
7.0
8.40
1960
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
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Some African Competitiveness issues
Title S. Africa Egypt Mauritius Nigeria Zimbabwe
Tech Sophistication 29 58 61 70 59
High Skilled IT Job Market 40 37 48 59 63
IT Education 44 51 64 69 50
Prioritization of ICT 42 14 12 63 74
Quality of Public Schools 53 51 44 68 54
Difference in Quality of Schools 64 54 39 69 66
Extent of Staff Training 26 45 38 62 34
Management of Schools 19 55 72 52 66
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Availability of Skilled Labour?

• Africas educational system is flawed
• Africas investment in education is inadequate
• Inadequate national planning on education
• Strategic focus of each country
• National competence of each county
• Industrial clusters and organisational
  competencies
• Global competitiveness (Technology).

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Challenges of the Private Sector

• Poor strategic planning of manpower needs
• Inability to define specify required
  competencies
• Flawed recruitment process
• Matching people to jobs
• Being painstaking in the process
• Using recruitment professionals
• The cost of recruitment errors
• Retention strategies are not in place
• There is a need to focus on keeping people
• Education and Training
• Not managing employees careers
• Competitive reward and recognition systems
• Learning to grow own labour pool .

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Supporting Investment and Growth

• Vocational training
• Greater investment in pre-tertiary
• Primary, secondary, vocational
• Telecommunications
• Information technology
• Power generation engineering
• Mechanical engineering
• Infrastructure construction
• Beneficiation of natural resources
• Mineral mining
• Oil exploration
• Oil beneficiation
• Agriculture.

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Going back home

• Jobs are running out in the western world
• What are your competencies?
• Knowledge, skills, attitude
• What is the relevance of your experience?
• Skills are always relevant its finding the
  right job
• Plan your return home
• Manage your expectations through research
• Seeking opportunities in Africa and not own home
  country
• Entrepreneurial doing your own thing
• You dont have to come homebut !.

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Africa A Continent of Opportunities

• Huge labour population
• Phenomenal Raw Materials
• Very High unemployment
• Shortage of the right skills
• Wrong focus of skill development
• Little or no manpower planning
• Skewed population profile
• Very inadequate investment in skills development
• The technology paradigm another lost
  opportunity?.

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Thank You!