Saturday, November 12, 2016

YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT IN SOMALIA

Youth Unemployment in Somalia


More than 70% of Somalia’s population is under the age of 30 and statistics show that the youth are mostly unemployed. Unemployment has long been a major problem in Somalia, particularly to the youth. The unemployment of the youth has increased after the collapse of the Somali government in 1991, because most of the infrastructure in the country has been destroyed and public or private sectors that offers job opportunities have been riddled with corruption. Youth grumbled about these factors which eventually led to some of them to take on the treacherous journey through the Mediterranean Sea seeking for better opportunities abroad and even caused some to join the Islamist militant group ‘Al-Shabab’.
The lack of job opportunities amongst the youth leads them to look for other options to gain an income; these options include crime and migration. The youth have at times resorted to crime as a means to obtain an income due to the circumstances that prevailed at the time and are still present today, and the failure of the state also led to the failure of the education sector meaning that a generation was plagued with illiteracy not considering other alternatives they decided to turn to crime. The other option that youth took was migrating to Europe in a bid to find a better a life beyond the unforgiving sea which has resulted in many dying in their quest to reach Europe.   
Unemployment has had an impact on me personally. The difficulty of finding employment is a frustrating that I understand too well, and one year ago I attempted to find employment in an organization and was unfortunately denied on basis of clanism. This is another problem that contributes to the widespread youth unemployment because each candidate for a job is not selected based on merit but rather selected on their clan affiliations, this creates an unfair standard for getting employed. The mass migration to Europe has directly affected me primarily due to losing close friends and hearing their heart-breaking stories of their demise, and sometimes I would hear of friends that wanted to migrate to Europe by crossing the Mediterranean Sea. I would try to convince them against it but at times without success they wouldn’t listen to the warnings.
Nevertheless, the another major causes of unemployment in the discourses is that lack of quality education in the country. This resulted the youth lacking the required knowledge, and the skills necessarily to work. This accompanied with  the country cannot attract foreign investments  because of the security situation in the country.
The solution to fix these problems is to produce our abundant resources that can easily be produced mainly Livestock, Fishing and Farming in collaboration with United Nations, educational institutions, government, youth, private sector, NGO’s and international partners. Youth who have a high quality education, the training and the skills may be attractive to employers and this will eventually reduce the number of youth seeking opportunity abroad.
Unemployment is widespread problem among the Somali youth. Since we are the future of Somalia’s prosperity the fact that employment is hard to come by is truly a troubling thought. Despite all, that the future looks brighter than ever before as the peace that Somalia is currently experiencing has not been seen for the past 2 decades and peace will bring development, and development will change the course of Somalia for the better.


                        Written by: Mohamud Shawul Abdirahman
                           Edited by: Rick Boychuk

4 comments:

  1. Masha Allah. What a Meaningful article That's Writen by One of Somalis Youth Activists That Work for Many years to develop Somalis youth Situations.
    Thanks
    Dear: Mohamud Shawul.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Masha allah this is a pragmatic article that is truly mentioning the fact and the trouble that somalis youth are having.
    Thanks alot
    Dear: Mohamud Shawul Abdirahman.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Its very pleasure for me to vist my brother's blog and it is very realistic artile which needs to be solved bcz the rate of unempoyement of our country is icreasing year by year and me myself only i know that the employed based on clanism not on eductaion or experience and that could cause to search every one better life than his country

    Thanks dear Mohamud Shawul Abdirahman

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for your feedback brothers. I really appreciated.

    ReplyDelete