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President Biden became the first sitting US president to visit Africa since twenty fifteen this week, as he kept his promise to meet with President Joel Lorenzo in Angola.
And makes sense. You must work as partners with work entrepreneur.
That business is here in Africa.
Although I don't know exactly what the future will hold, I know the future runs through Angola, through Africa. I mean it sincerely.
The President was keen to teut US investment in infrastructure like the Lobido Corridor to help speed up the export of critical minerals, but for many Africans it's the export of their young talent that's actually become the real concern. On this episode of The Next Africa Podcast, we'll look at why so many young Africans think their future prospects lie abroad and what can be done to turn it around.
I'm Jennifer Zabasandra, and this is the Next Africa Podcast, bringing you one story each week from the continent driving the future of global growth, but the context only Bloomberg can provide. Joining me this week from Nairobi is author, journalist and Bloomberg columnists Shiku Kameria Shiku, great to have you here.
How are you doing, Hi, Jennifer, I'm great, nice to see you.
Nice to see you too and speak with you.
This is a very fascinating piece, and I'm sure for many people who have been covering the region it's something that's been on the minds for a number of years. But let's start with some of the concepts you get into in your piece, and one of them is called jappa. Talk to us about what that means and why you focused in on that.
So Japa is a concept of young Africans who are so frustrated. Many times they're they're patriotic, they have great hopes, they're innovative, they're resilient, but then they get to the point where they feel the continent has failed them. And japa means to flee, and so now they're fleeing to and these are young, educated people, so it's really people that the continent should be tapping into and keeping on
the continent. But they get frustrated and they'll be living for Canada, UK or any other any other place in the West that's making it easy for people to move for work.
Do we have a sense to go.
Why they're choosing some of these places that they're going, especially given some of the challenges that they're facing here on the continent. Is that factoring into potentially where they're going.
What did you find?
Yes, So from what I boops are people will go where it's easiest for them. So even anecdotally, a lot of the friends who I have who young professional, they had good education and them a great career trajectory, they're leaving for Canada because Canada does have they have a very immigration friendly program that's going on that it's based on a point system.
Welcome, We're so glad you decided to make Canada your new home.
It's easy for people to move because there are people who have had opportunities, so they don't to move in illegal ways. They want to move in a way where they know I will be able to get proper documentation after a while. There's an opportunity for residency, and there's an opportunity for citizenship. And also, anecdotically, one thing I can say that makes me notice this trend is really happening.
Quite a few of the people who are even in my own cycle, of the people who are moving are people who were educated, even in the West, So it means they went abroad, whether they went to Canada or went Trance, whether they were in the US, they went abroad, studied and came back to the continent with great hopes of what they could do when they came back. So they didn't even try to stay at that time. They didn't tried to get residency or immigration or immigrat at
that stage. And then they've come back and after five years, ten years, they've just filled their opportunities here and it's not what they expected, and so out of frustration, they're taking all their amazing skills and their experience and just trying to build a better life for themselves and their families abroad. So I think it's a real loss for the continent. I believe it's again for the countries that get them, but it's really a loss also for the continent well.
And it comes at a time where you mentioned the population increase. There's also a lot more of a focus on development on the continent and really a lot of the industries that could power the future literally and figuratively. But when we talk about employment figures and the underemployment figures, I guess.
I mean, how bad is it? What are we looking at?
Especially when we factor and a lot of the people who are living and finding opportunities elsewhere.
It varies to country, but I would say youth and employment rates are generally quite high across the continent, and we're starting to lose people who have we definitely need, Like we're losing huge numbers of nass We're losing huge numbers of doctors, teachers, so highly engineers, so highly skilled people who the continent really needs right now at this time. An example I gave in the article was engineers. So there's also a huge wave of migration among older engineers.
So right now, when the continent needs infrastructure, when it needs people with all these expertise, you're having engineers who are in their fifties, sixties who have all this experience, and they're choosing to move elsewhere.
That's surprising.
I mean, I wonder after you wrote this story, I wonder what kind of did you get any feedback or how are people responding to it?
Yeah, A lot of the feedback I got was, first, the one thing, no one is blaming anyone for leaving because there is an acknowledgement that patrioti is love of your country. All those can only take you so far. At some point, you want to make sure you know your children will have great education opportunities. You want to have access to health care. If you have aging parents, you want to know that they'll be you know you'll be able to provide for them deep into their old age.
So there is an acknowledgment that the people who are leaving. No no one is saying, oh, this is so terrible of them to leave, but we are knowledging that it's terrible that the continent is losing these people. I did get a few responses from people who have left or japaned. I guess they told me, oh, this is my exact story, and it's the truth. I wanted things to work out. I tried everything when I was in Kenya, Senega, Nigeria, Ghana.
I tried everything to make things work and eventually I just realized that it can't work for me there and I'm leaving. So there's also that feeling and for the people who are leaving, it's a bittersweet.
Yeah, I think that's that's fair.
Anywhere you go on the continent and talk to people, there still is that patriotism, she could stay.
With us US.
When we come back, we'll talk about what kind of investment could help people to stay on the continent and dig more into your reporting.
We'll be right back.
Welcome back today on the podcast we are looking at Africa's youth brain Drain and joining us is Bloomberg columnists Shiku Kamara. She wrote a really wonderful story that is now available if you haven't read it, so she could. We did see President Biden in Angola this week.
Outgoing President Biden, I think we.
Should we should mention he did make a number of announcements about some of the investment that the US is going to be committing to, at least for Africa and for Angola in particular. But what kind of investment are we talking about to potentially see a difference or a shift in some of the trends of people leaving to go elsewhere.
Yeah, I think outgoing President Biden did say some very interesting things during his visit.
We know African leaders and citizens are seeking more than just aid, you seek investment. So the United States is expanding our relationship all across Africa, from assistance to aid, investment to trade coming from patrons to partners.
Aid is always going to be needed, even in the US, even in developing countries, there's always going to be situations where there's people who need They don't need loans, they need grants, they need those benevolent funds that are coming in. But he did acknowledge that Africa and US and other partners should come to the table as equal. So even when investors are coming to the continent, they should come to the continent not with the mentality of your poor, I'm here.
To help you.
They should come to the table with the idea that we're business people. The opportunities are here on the continent. There's the people who have been running businesses, there's the entrepreneurs who have the networks and everything, and maybe what they need is the financing. So also acknowledging that it can be a win win situation and that it should be a partnership. Another thing I liked, especially about the little bit Or Corridor project that he was launching in Angola.
We definitely need investments that go into government and infrastructure, because infrastructure is going to be a huge backbone of development on the continent. But we also need investments that's going into the private sector. So when we're talking about infrastructure, it's true there's a huge need on the continent for improved road rail networks. Even we're talking about like aviation, there's a huge potential that could be unlocked if all
these things were working much better. But all the other hand, we also do need that for the private sector because the formal sector will never be able to incomparate that many people. But you have to acknowledge that there's a lot of businesses that are running, and they're running at a small scale, but the ideas could be there, the ideas could be great, and what they need is additional funding.
I used to be the Quite Africa editor and so we focus a lot on technolog innovation, and one of the things we noticed was that start up funding, even to Africa, as much as it's increased over the past decades, it's still such a miniscule figure. It's still so tiny how much venture capital and all this funding comes into
technology in Africa versus in other places. But there's so many opportunities here on the continent and so many startups that if they just got those the seed frunding they got, you know, if they got all that all that funding that goes into startups globally, they could be able to change the markets and they could be able to also employ a lot of people.
Does that get to some of the other things that you bring up and the piece about what could potentially make a difference, I mean, what else would potentially push the needle even more.
So another thing that could do that that's definitely important is that the governments need to make sure they're enablers, they're not making additional constraints for businesses, because there is a mentality. Even in my own country in Kenya, sometimes it's so hard for people to get their businesses up, businesses running, it's so hard for them to access financing. Then after all that, many times they don't feel that the government is their friend because you finally get your
business running, then taxes are being added on it. Then there's other charges that are coming your way that make you have to stop the business or lay off people. So I think governments also need to acknowledge that a lot of these jobs are going to be created by the private sector and businesses, and they need to make an environment that forced us their growth so that they don't hamstring them even just when they're at the stage where they're trying to start up.
And you have a young daughter yourself, just talking about family, have you thought about whether or not, you know, you'd encourage her to build a career in Nairobi or anywhere on the continent, or what at all have you thought about sort of her future.
Great, So my daughter is four, so I would say I've not yet thought of her future career processs. What I would What I want is this Soudan is probably mentioned in the article which says we wish two things for our children. One is roots and the other is wings. So that's what I really hope for her. I wish for her a world where she has her roots. Her roots are on the African continent, but she also has
wings that will allow her to fly. But I also hope that when it comes to the time of when she's going to high school, university, or making future decisions, I hope that if she's moving, it's because she wants to,
not because she's supposed to. On the lower level, they are people who are getting into boats and crossing the Mediterranean, risking their life just because things are so dire that they're not working for them that they'd rather take the chance of drowning than watching them themselves and their families like just staff today. And that's how dire the situation is that for most people it's a question of survival, not just this. I have this option and this other
option is better. But for many people it's really migration right now seems to be their only opportunity for them to put food on the table or to even enhance their lives. And I don't want that to be the future that Majorty grows happy.
Shiku Kamara, thank you so much for joining us, and you can of course read Shiku's piece on Bloomberg. It is available right now. Here's a few other stories we're watching in the region. This week, Ghana's inflation jumped to a six month high at twenty three percent ahead of
the country's December seventh presidential elections. The cost of living crisis will be a factor in the elections, with voters angry with the government's handling of the economy expected to result in opposition candidate John Mohamma being.
Elected the next leader of the West African nation.
And South Africa risks missing its twenty twenty four economic growth forecast after the agricultural sector's deepest slump in at least three decades led to an unexpected contraction in the third quarter. The quarterly decline meant gross domestic product expanded a meager four tenths of a percent in the nine
months through September. Data published by Statistics South Africa on Tuesday shows that suggests the National Treasury and the South African Reserve Banks twenty twenty four growth estimates of one point one.
Percent will likely prove overly optimistic.
And you can follow these stories across Bloomberg, including the Next African Newsletter, where we will have coverage of the Ghanaian elections. Will put a link to that in the show notes. This program was produced by Adrian Bradley. Don't forget to follow and review this show wherever you usually get your podcasts.
I'm Jennifer's Abasaja. Thanks for listening.