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.
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.
ReplyDeleteThanks
Dear: Mohamud Shawul.
Masha allah this is a pragmatic article that is truly mentioning the fact and the trouble that somalis youth are having.
ReplyDeleteThanks alot
Dear: Mohamud Shawul Abdirahman.
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
ReplyDeleteThanks dear Mohamud Shawul Abdirahman
Thanks for your feedback brothers. I really appreciated.
ReplyDelete