Capitalizing On Nigeria’s Demographic Dividend: The role of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET)
W
hile many other regions of the world are aging, Africa’s population is becoming increasingly youthful. Africans under the age of 25 currently make up 60 percent of the continent’s population and as fertility rates fall elsewhere, larger proportions of the global workforce will be African. By 2035, the number of Africans reaching working age will exceed the rest of the world combined. Looking longer term, the consequences are even more dramatic. By the end of this century, the United Nations predicts that the world will be home to more Africans than Europeans.
Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and the eighth most populous country in the world, with approximately 180 million people. Despite declining fertility, Nigeria’s population is expected to continue to grow to 239 million by 2025 and 440 million by 2050 due to population momentum, making it then the 4th most populous country in the world (United Nations). Nigeria is therefore, on the verge of experiencing a potential demographic dividend, or the economic growth due to the increase in the share of a country’s population in the working ages (and the corresponding decline of those in the non-working ages). In simple terms, the demographic dividend is the economic growth that may result from changes to a country’s age structure, due to the shift from people living short lives and having large families to living long lives and having small families. Because of this change in age distribution, fewer investments are needed to meet the needs of the youngest age groups and resources are freed up for 12
what is called the “economic gift”. This means that the labor force is growing more rapidly than the population that is dependent on it, creating a window for faster economic growth and family welfare. In theory, at the micro level, this transition can result in better living standards for families and higher incomes per person while at the macro level, it can mean significant gains in the economic development of a country.
Even when a country is ripe for demographic dividend, it is only possible if there is proper family planning resulting in fertility decline, improved health through appropriate health reforms, well-educated and skilled youth population, especially one with a gender balance and the implementation of sound economic policies and good governance. Interest has peaked among African leaders (Nigeria included) and development partners on how the continent can transform its rapidly growing population into a transformative force for sustainable development. This is reflected in the many commitments, conversations and efforts on the continent to harness the demographic dividend. These efforts culminated in the designation of “Harnessing the demographic dividend through investments in youth” as the theme for the summit meetings of the African Union for 2017. The African Union’s roadmap for harnessing the demographic dividend calls on countries to maximize their chances of harnessing the demographic dividend by prioritizing investments in four pillars namely:
Prof. Adesoji Adesugba
Vice President, ICT, Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Provost, ACCI BEST Centre
Health and Wellbeing (including family planning) Rights, Governance and Youth Empowerment One of the main reasons why the demographic dividend paradigm has gathered so much traction among African leaders is that it resonates with the very vivid challenge of dealing with the growing number of unskilled and underemployed African youth that virtually every African country is grappling with.
This demographic shift comes with big challenges, most African countries such as Nigeria whose populations are growing most quickly also tend to be the poorest. Governments already struggling to provide access to health care, education, and infrastructure face an uphill battle against high fertility rates and the increasingly larger cohorts of citizens demanding services. Failure to provide Employment and Entrepreneur- opportunities for this growing segment of the population could ship easily become a burden for slugEducation and Skills Developgish economies or a source of ment
