Labor And The Growth Crisis In Sub Saharan Africa

Annotation Reviews labor market outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa and analyzes what is required to spur economic growth through increased efficiency of physical and human capital. "World Development Report 1995: Workers in an Integrating World" examines ways of improving labor outcomes in low- and middle-income economies. This regional perspective focuses on Sub-Saharan Africa in relation to the four areas in need of labor policy reform that were identified in the Report: development strategy, international integration, labor market interventions, and transformation to greater market orientation. The paper reviews labor market outcomes in the region and analyzes what is required to achieve economic growth through increased efficiency of physical and human capital. It examines Africa's role in the world economy and why greater integration is essential to the region. It also discusses labor policies and how workers in the region are affected by the transition to open development strategies. The prospects for the region's growing labor force are briefly reviewed.

3. Investing in people.

3. Investing in people.

"The series is sponsored by the Agence Francaise de Developpement and the World Bank."

Dramatic increases in food prices, as witnessed on a global scale in recent years, threaten the food security of hundreds of millions of the rural poor in Sub-Saharan Africa alone. This book focuses on recent food and financial crises as they have affected Africa, illustrating the problems using country case studies, that cover their origins, effects on agriculture and rural poverty, their underlying factors and making recommendations as to how such crises could best be addressed in the future.

Sub-Saharan Africa has only 12 percent of the global population, yet this region accounts for 50 percent of child deaths, more than 60 percent of maternal deaths, 85 percent of malaria cases, and close to 67 percent of people living with HIV. Sub-Saharan Africa, however, has the lowest number of health workers in the world-significantly fewer than in South Asia, which is at a comparable level of economic development. The Labor Market for Health Workers in Africa uses the analytical tools of labor markets to examine the human resource crisis in health from an economic perspective. Africa's labor markets are complex, with resources coming from governments, donors, the private sector, and households. Low numbers of health workers and poor understanding of labor market dynamics are major impediments to improving health service delivery. Yet some countries in the region have developed innovative solutions with new approaches to creating a robust health workforce that can respond to the continent's health challenges. As Africa grows economically, the invaluable lessons in this book can help build tomorrow's African health systems.

Estimates of the current and future structure of employment in sub-Saharan Africa (2005–20) are obtained based on household survey estimates for 28 countries and an elasticity-type model that relates employment to economic growth and demographic outcomes. Agriculture still employs the majority of the labor force although workers are shifting slowly out of the sector. Sub-Saharan Africa’s projected rapid labor force growth, combined with a low baseline level of private sector wage employment, means that even if sub-Saharan Africa realizes another decade of strong growth, the share of labor force employed in private firms is not expected to rise substantially. Governments need to undertake measures to attract private enterprises that provide wage employment, but they also need to focus on improving productivity in the traditional and informal sectors as these will continue to absorb the majority of the labor force.

A study prepared by the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER)