The eighth session of the African Union Social Affairs Commission opened in Yaounde on thursday.The main issue is jobs as a stimulus for economic growth.

Labour or Social Security Ministers or representatives from across the continent began meeting in Yaounde yesterday to find ways of synergising efforts towards making job-cration a major element in the fight against poverty or, at least, a way of sustaining the positive trends in Africa’s economic growth observed in 2010 and further ensuring that they are maintained in 2011.

The Yaounde meeting, holding under the theme: “promoting employment for social cohesion and inclusive growth in Africa” could not have been more timely. And for good reason. On the field, the functioning of the State is being rocked to the bottom as is the case with a number of cases in the African Maghreb and Mackrek states where socio-political unrest is directly linked to the inability of government to provide jobs for armies of unemployed youths. On the other hand, the Yaounde meeting is coming barely weeks after a joint meeting of African Ministers of Finance, planning and Economic Development meeting under the joint partnership of the African Union and the UN Economic Commission for Africa in Addis Ababa acknowledged positive trends in Africa’s economic performances, with growth rates projected for as high as five per cent in 2011.

But these trends, positive as they are, are hardly taking African peoples out of poverty, let alone bringing about the good life, many people expect to live as is experienced in other regions of the world.

All speakers were agreed on ways and means of translating this good news into concrete reality. And concrete reality here means growth which is inclusive. By inclusive here, one refers to the fact that inclusive growth does not only remain at the level of statistics, but must see many more people, especially young people and women, accede to jobs.

Coincidence

Cameroon’s Prime Minister Philemon Yang, who represented the Head of State, President Paul Biya at this high-level encounter judiciously linked the preoccupation of African policy makers to specific Cameroonian efforts where everything is being done to ensure that problems of employment and, specifically, youth employment issues are being addressed. The representative of the Government Delegate to the Yaounde city Council André Edou in his welcome statement made mention of the much-acclaimed government decision to absorb 25,000 youths into the civil service. “It is a government fully aware of the need for social cohesion that is welcoming you here to Yaounde”, the city council official said, corroborating numerous other ideas, Prime Minister Yang would say in is formal opening statement. Cameroon, as a founding father of the African Union, could only have been very bullish about any initiative to improve the employment in the African continent. The Premier acknowledged the fact that many areas remained to be addressed in narrowing inequalities and reducing poverty and inequalities, defining social cohesion as a field on which various actors decide to work hand in hand…and where the weak are no neglected and where facilities are extended to the largest spectrum of affected populations.

Yaounde was a forum for several principal actors to make very pertinent pronouncements about Africa’s employment situation. Be it Barrister Gawanas, the AU Commissioner for Social Affairs or the ILO Africa Regional Director Charles Dan or the Head of the Pan-African Workers’ Organisation, Hassan Adebayo, the situation is that which seeks for immediate solutions: creating a working environment which provides jobs; especially those that directly address issues such as health, food, housing, education, water, transport, electricity, communication etc.

This eighth session of the Labour and Social Affairs Commission of the AU ends today with recommendations expected to address a wide-range of issues raised at yesterday’s opening ceremony.