High-level dialogue on “Growth, inequality and unemployment”

Abstract

Africa has achieved impressive economic growth over the past 15 years. Average growth in real gross domestic product (GDP) increased from close to zero in the 1980s and 1990s to a robust 4.5 per cent a year between 2001 and 2014, though with large variation across countries. Since then, growth has been more moderate with the decline in commodity prices in recent years. Still, many countries have grown in excess of 5 per cent and even higher. Economic growth is a necessary condition for employment generation, and employment is a pathway out of poverty. The economic growth witnessed since the turn of the century has failed to create the number of good-quality and decent jobs necessary to absorb the more than 10 million young people joining the labor force each year.