Delving deeper into the agricultural transformation and youth employment nexus: The Nigerian case
This working paper by IFPRI aims to critically analyze the youth unemployment situation in sub-Saharan Africa as a whole and in Nigeria in particular and to delve deeper into the potential that agriculture has for job creation for youth. In Section 2 the authors provide an overview of the youth unemployment situation globally and in Africa, followed in Section 3 by a review of the literature on the role agriculture plays in job creation. In Section 4, the dynamics of unemployment and job creation in Nigeria are reviewed. In Section 5 recent initiatives in Nigeria on this front are discussed. The concluding section of the paper discusses some policy recommendations emanating from the analysis for Nigeria of youth employment in agriculture. One of these recommendations is that in order to transform the agricultural sector to create jobs that youth aspire to engage in, there is a need to incorporate well-structured training appropriate for imparting the skills needed by youth employed along agricultural value chains.