 Recent research indicates that 60% of Africa's population is under the age of 25 and 67% is under the age of 30. Sadly, in 2019, about half of Africa's working age youths arrived at jobless or under-employed, a situation that has exacerbated by the pandemic, which has caused more people to be unemployed than ever before, with women and young people suffering the most. This is a threat to the African continent, considering the population of this particular demographic, and trustingly, experts across the continent agree that creating high-quality jobs with respectable salaries and working conditions is critical to Africa's future and stability. Welcome to Business Insights on Class TV Africa. I am Justin Acadone. Africa needs 15 million new good jobs annually to accommodate its increasing youths' population. The startling statistics compel every concerned African to call on government in case stakeholders to make policy changes and commitments that enable African businesses to flourish and domestic foreign investment to grow. Now, organizations like one campaign also launched jobs now Africa to encourage government to cross Africa to make job creation a tough issue and look into addressing the barriers that prevents job creation. Now, Stanley Achano is once Nigeria director. He has 10 years' experience in the management of development programs and policy reform in the civil society and government. Stanley served as the civil society advisor at the Nigeria Open Gap and Partnership, OGP secretariat, where he coordinated the nation's membership of the OGP and the implementation of the country's reform commitments. Thank you Stanley for joining us on Business Insights on Class TV Africa. Thank you for having me. A pleasure to be here. All right. Let's start by setting the context. How about its unemployment in Africa and specifically Nigeria? So, as you mentioned, we have a very useful demographic on here on the continent, very useful population, one of the youngest population in the world. But the challenge also is that opportunities do not exist for these bringing young people on the continent and, you know, really home here in Nigeria, the Nigeria National Bureau of Statistics data shows that almost 22 million Nigerians are out of job and some people question that statistics to say it is worse than the numbers are showing, even as terrible as the Bureau of Statistics data shows that the situation is very bad. The chances are that you know someone of job seeking age who is currently out of job. This is the reality that we live in, live within Nigeria. Researchers have argued that because of the unemployment challenge is also poorly the insecurity challenge. So, if researchers are now looking at the linkage between unemployment and insecurity, and if that linkage is true, then you can see how the situation is by looking at the security challenges across the continent, you know, when you go through the Sahara area where, you know, the terrorists are overrunning countries, all the way down to the northern Nigeria, then when you go to the south, southeast, and all of the kidnapping in the Middle Belt regions extending all the way to south, southwest. So it tells you that there is a youthful population that is out of job without sticking the economy across the continent who do not, who now feel that violence is the only way to make their voices heard. And this is only one aspect of the challenge. When the pandemic broke, it also made the situation worse, where people were out of job and the lockdown made that companies shut their, the extent of their services. And then the lockdown and the restriction of the travel restriction also made the situation worse. Compounding with the reopening of the economy to the challenges that now followed in terms of economic recovery and then the war in Ukraine. So Africa has consistently, over the last 10 years, just been on the downward trend. And even where in quotes, there's reported growth, the growth always is on paper. It doesn't exactly translate into reality for young people. So opportunities are limited. The numbers are dire. We've seen protests in South Africa earlier in the year where it started as a protest around the issue of Jacob Zuma, but it took the life of its own. It led to the burning of properties. We also saw the protest against police brutality here in Nigeria. And how that also escalated very quickly is because they spent up anger due to lack of opportunities for young people on the continent that is fueling all of the distrust in government, all of the anger and all of the security challenges we face. So the situation we find ourselves on the continent is such that it would not do specific things very quickly. And when I say specific things, we need to be looking at creating 15 million jobs, new jobs every year for young people on the continent for the next five years before we can see a downward trend in this challenge that we face with unemployment. And working as a group, convening all most 40 partners across Africa and speaking to experts is obvious that Africa is at a position where we can no longer wait and can no longer say there is more time for us to do this. The time to do something about unemployment in Africa was yesterday. Can you hear me? Yes. All right. Let me just vote in at this point before we now get into all of the merits and what we need to do to create those 15 million jobs that you have said in the next five years. I really want to get a real good perspective to all of these issues, the barriers to job creation as it were. Over time, the government has come up with several policies. We've had you win. We've had several policies. It just in order for Nigerians to be actively involved, positively and economically. But over time, we seem not to be seeing the changes that we are expecting. So one challenge is policy inconsistency. Everyone wants to introduce a fresh idea. Nobody thinks that the previous idea is worth it. So that has also left a lot of people hanging. And depending on who you speak to, they will say, oh, this program is the best. That program is the best. But one challenge you see consistent in all of them is that nobody wants to follow through, to see through the end. So sometimes, not sometimes, most of the time, the challenge with the policies is not in the design. It's actually in the implementation and in the follow-through. So there is no short cut and there's no quick win around it. There are things around enabling a business environment that we need to tackle. This is not, when I say enabling business environment, this is not about World Bank index or any of those things. There are real challenges that businesses face on the continent or in Nigeria that we need to tackle head on. And to understand this challenge, try and open a shop somewhere and see the amount of demands you receive from governments. The first day you open your shop, nobody cares about, oh, you're creating employment. Nobody's thinking about tax incentives. Nobody cares about your growth. All they want is they want to extract from you. So the environment for doing business in Nigeria is extremely difficult. So one is the problem of inconsistency in the policy. So the challenge is not with the policy. The challenge is with the implementation of the policy and remaining consistent with the policy. I sometimes I sit back and wonder, you mentioned you win, right? I wonder if we have consistently implemented you win for 10 years. What difference would that have made? And that's on one side. The other one is the question around ease of doing business and business environment and business climate. This government came on board and the office of the vice president led the charge on improving business environment. And there was a council setup with advisory from experts from around the world. Where are we on easing this business? I just fear that sometimes some of these attempts are cosmetic. They're not followed through. The difficult work of getting them off the ground and remaining consistent is not done. One of the challenges financing when young people start businesses is not impossible for them to get access to credit. It is even more challenging for women. Women businesses, no matter how successful they are, they face more huddle when it comes to assessing financing and capital for their business than their main their main counterpart is almost similar challenge when you are a young person. There's a complete distrust for new entrants into the business environment that the financial support they need is never provided. So it feels like everybody's avoiding any effort to take risk and grow with these small businesses. So young people face that challenge of capital. And then there's also on the flip side, there's the question about where do you even find the skills that you need to grow your business? The skills are constantly on their way out. They are constantly at the airport trying to get out of this place. So why is it that we cannot retain talent? Why is it that we cannot grow talent? Why is it that we cannot keep the talents that we grow here? While we designed our jobs in Africa campaign, I was speaking to a lot of people in multiple sectors. And I had an interesting conversation with someone who works in tech. And he said, before now, Nigeria used to be that, oh, do not do remote work with anybody who lives in Nigeria because there was stuff here of fraud and all of those things, that bad reputation. But with the pandemic, the reverse was the case where people were specifically demanding for talent from Nigeria. How are we harnessing that, right? So and a few days ago, I was speaking to somebody who works in tech and the guy said his entire tech team are all living for Canada, UK, and Europe, right? He's struggling to find talent. So we are not training enough. We are not retaining the talent to grow. We are losing the little that we train to more developed economies. So there is just a myriad of challenges. A lot of challenges, yes. I agree with you Stanley. But then again, let us move forward because of time because you have identified the bulk of the challenges. But let's look at probably maybe some sort of solution. I know your organization is involved in things like this. You talked about a project that you have learned the jobs now Africa. But then again, development organization such as Just as One campaign, what have you done? Maybe VisaV would work in with government to ensure that they make this issue of unemployment and job creation top priority. So at the moment, we're engaging African leaders on specific things. One is that we need to open up the continent to trade with ourselves. So the African continent free trade agreement that came into effect recently. We are asking them to do whatever it takes to open up our borders so that businesses can cross trade. One big challenge that businesses face is just moving their goods from here to neighboring countries. Nigeria went through several months of border closure without consideration for the suffering that businesses that trade across the border face. And this is a common trend where there is that level of arbitrariness in terms of waking up one morning because of one challenge, you then decide that every other person must suffer alongside, right? So we're asking African leaders to do more to implement the free trade agreement that Africa entered into. It holds an enormous opportunity for us to grow. Europe is where it is today because you can easily trade between European countries in the EU freely without hindrance and it has not taken away from one country's economy or the other. There is a lot of protectionism on the continent where every country wants to mend their border, wants to protect what crosses their border. What we need to do is encourage African leaders to find comparative advantage where they have it and become the leader in that sector. We can't all produce everything. It is erroneous to assume that every country must be self-sufficient. It's a good thing to hope for, but where you are lacking, you can trade and then complement each other, right? So Africa needs to open up our border, trade with each other is extremely important. And we're engaging the African Union and African leaders on full implementation of the trade agreement. Here in Nigeria, there are just some few things we are asking the Nigerian government to do. Things like... Astali, Astali, Astali would get into what the government needs to do and of course what sector they should consider as focal points. But we need to take a quick break. And there's still business insights on plus TV Africa. We still have Astali Acharno, who is with one campaign. He's the country director here in Nigeria. In a moment, we'll come back. We identify the factors that we need to be put in place to ensure that entrepreneurship development is a priority and of course how government and the private sector can partner to achieve this in a moment, to be right back, don't go away. How to address the issue of unemployment is our focus on the show for today and Astali Acharno is our guest. Now moving on, beyond the government, Astali, how do we involve the youths themselves and even the private sector in this issue of job creation? So private sector leaders are already sort of eager to do more. The regular complaint that we have had from private sector is restrictive government regulatory frameworks for operation that continue to hamper the ability to expand their business. So this is one challenge that our private sector leaders continue to complain about. One other challenge that we've heard loud from private sector leaders is the issue of the ability to access raw materials. That has become a big challenge for leaders and of course for business leaders, of course the insecurity has also hampered the ability to expand their businesses and grow. Of course no country will thrive in the face of the level of insecurity that we're facing in Nigeria. So those are some of the challenges that private sector thinks. But there are specific things that private sector leaders can do. They can support growth of smaller businesses. One good example I like to go back to is the things I see people like Tuneil Medu Foundation do. Supporting young businesses or businesses led by young people through their small grant that makes the most difference. And because when you dig into the kind of work they do, those little initial financing that they provide to those businesses is the lifeblood that sustains them. And I've seen a few of those businesses grow just because they receive that small financial support. So young people are already creative because I fear that a lot of times we are putting a lot of budget and expectation on young people, on what they could do to create jobs. But they are already green enough. They are founding companies that are already worth billions of dollars. We've seen that in tech space, right? We have seen that in food and manufacturing. We have seen that in agriculture. But the environment in which they are operating remains extremely restrictive and is a major impediment. So it's easy to say to young people who start businesses, what can you do to create business? What can you do to create opportunity? But the environment in which you are asking that question remains an extremely challenging environment and government needs to take specific steps like putting in place laws and regulation like what we have with the startup deal that will enable young people found startups in tech that can take advantage of a growing global requirement and need, right? So we need to be very intentional about how we approach it. We can be a major supplier of tech talent. We can challenge India for that space in the world. And we need to be very, very intentional about how we approach it. So I fear that I'm very, not very sure when you say what can young people do? Young people are already green enough in a very challenging environment. So I think our attention is what are those bottlenecks in place that government needs to remove, right? What are those laws that government needs to put in place that creates that opportunity? Not asking young people what they can do. They are already green enough. They built an entertainment industry that is world-class from movies to music, right? So what else do you want young people to do? The reason why I asked what young people could indeed do is that over time, most people are only focused on going to school, the six, a double, three, four, a personal from the university and going back to the labor market to look for maybe a normal nine-to-five job. I was talking about the absence of entrepreneurship and what they could do to drive and being their own bosses, basically. Yes, so often I understand your question. So there are opportunities for young people. The one has become a global village and you can actually set up businesses and service companies elsewhere in the world. So the internet has become an open place for people to try. And we have seen that happen. We have seen people who are content creators. We have seen skitmakers, comedians, influencers who are making millions of dollars just off being on the internet. So that's one area that young people can look at, right? The other place that I think that opportunities exist is agriculture. And I recognize the security challenge in this sector. And culture presents a very unique opportunity. Food is extremely important and our production level is not at that level where we can say we are sustainable, right? There's a huge opportunity in our group processing. There is a huge opportunity in logistics and we are not taking advantage of that young people can take. Some of these are extremely capital intensive but I think that building businesses upon businesses people sort of finding gaps and supporting that gap can be a unique way that young people take advantage of that. Trade is also a big place. Look, our passion is the toast of Africa and I've seen people who want to wear Nigerian, right? From outside of Nigeria. So I think that there is an opportunity for us to export our fashion. We are very creative in our fashion. We are very creative in the way we dress and we can export that to the rest of Africa. There is a huge opportunity for young people to take on fashion, right? So and then of course there is construction. You know, we are lacking in infrastructure, our boat roads, housing, you know, furniture. There is just a whole lot of areas that we can, that young people can start to look to create opportunity for themselves and they are already doing some of that. If you look at entertainment, there's a new crop of very influential people whose entire fame is built on Instagram and TikTok and Facebook short clips, right? Comedy skips. And they are employers of people because I've met some of them. They have a whole team that they work with. They've created jobs. Some have, you know, I was speaking to one of those comedians and he said he has a team of 20 people that range from writers to lighting to engineers to sound, to editors and all of that. So there is that growing opportunity that young people can make. All right, Stanley. As we round off now, you've talked about opportunities and all of that. I would really need you to advise government in terms of priority and sectors to be involved in. You've talked about the fintech and the digital economy. Should that be prioritized right now as we speak in the country? Maybe that way we could be bridging all of the gaps and there's some employment issue that we've been talking about. So yes, government needs to do more to support the tech. It holds a huge great growth opportunity. Some may argue somewhat low cost entry for young people. So I think that government needs to be intentional about how they approach it, right? So put in place high priority measures that reduce also trade and transportation costs by addressing delays of our burden. You know, that will help, you know, those who are trying to export their businesses to also grow. Our border is extremely difficult. You have to try any of our land borders to see how impossible it is to move goods across. So we need to be sort of very creative in solving that problem so that young people can take that opportunity to grow their businesses, right? One of that area that I think the government needs to do to help young people is affordable and stable electricity. We need to do better with our energy access. I see that the vice president was in the U.S. conversing for investment in our energy sector. We need to do more to make energy available so that more people can be creative as well. But we also need to improve our access to markets. You know, inter-trade within the country, within the continent is something that the government needs to do more to encourage. People that have spoken to that into export say that it's an extremely impossible exercise from the Nigerian side, not even from the destination market. So we need to do more to improve on that as well. Thank you, Mots. Thank you so much, Stanley, for your time. We do appreciate all of the imputes that you have brought on the show for today. Stanley Achono is once Nigeria director. He is experiencing management of development programs and policy reform in both the civil society and in government. Thank you so much once again for your time. And that's the size of the show for today. I am Justin Akademia. We'll leave you with useful insight on how to write an informal business proposal. Till I see you again next time. Bye for now. Writing an informal proposal. The thought of writing a proposal overwhelms many people. But the task does not have to be daunting. Even more proposals are written when people need to ask permission to make a purchase, undertake a project, or write a paper. This type of proposal is a way of persuasively putting forth an idea and asking for action to be taken on that idea. When writing a proposal, consider who will read the proposal and what that person may or may not already know about what you are proposing. Follow these steps when writing a proposal. 1. State your purpose. Do this clearly and concisely so that the reader knows immediately why you are writing. 2. Give some background information. Explain why you are proposing your suggestion so that the reader has a better understanding of the problem. 3. State a solution to the problem. This is where you give specifics about your suggestion. 4. Show costs. Lay out any costs that will be involved. 5. Conclusion. Wrap it up by restating the problem and the proposed solution.