From Africa Renewal, Vol.20 #3 (October 2006), page 6 By Gumisai Mutume However, most countries have not yet incorporated job creation plans into their national development frameworks. The national strategies include anti-poverty programmes, commonly based on Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs). These are documents developed with assistance from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to set national priorities, direct spending of debt-relief funds and coordinate donor programmes.
“In view of their centrality in the development of low-income countries, PRSPs could be a major instrument for promoting youth employment,” comments Mr. Makha Dado Sarr, a former deputy executive secretary of ECA. “PRSPs have become major development programmes of the countries concerned, since they presently constitute the basis of the assistance provided by international financial institutions” and by most other multinational and bilateral development partners.
The ECA and AU are leading a drive to encourage African countries to incorporate job plans into their PRSPs. As part of this effort, ECA convened a PRSP review conference in Cairo, Egypt, in March 2006. Participants examined 21 poverty reduction strategies and found that two-thirds now contain basic job-creation measures, a significant improvement over the first generation of PRSPs, which barely covered employment issues. Some of these measures include plans to widen access to education, training and credit and to build infrastructure and attract investors. But, judged the ECA, none of the 21 PRSPs “substantially and explicitly confronted employment issues and challenges.”
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