Education: A key to the success of the African continental free trade area (AfCFTA)

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) represents an important milestone in achieving an economically integrated Africa and governments should invest in basic education and skills development, and strive for education reform that will facilitate the unimpeded participation of young people in the socioeconomic development of their countries.

April 06, 2021 by Rita Bissoonauth, African Union International Center for Girls and Women’s Education in Africa

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is viewed as a welcome socioeconomic objective and represents an important milestone in the context of the Pan-African imperative of achieving an economically integrated Africa.

This agreement, which took effect on January 1, 2021, has the potential to fuel the socioeconomic transformation of Africa through industrialization.

However, the AfCFTA will live up to its potential only if the benefits of production and trade expansion are equitably distributed and the process leaves no one behind, in particular marginalized groups.

Some of the obstacles currently facing entrepreneurs are low literacy levels of African youth, lack of access to business training, lack of skills development in the technical fields, and insufficient access to technology and markets.

Investment in basic education and skills development is an important consideration for African governments. They must therefore strive for education reform that will facilitate the unimpeded participation of young people in the socioeconomic development of their countries.

The continent needs human capital with better 21st century skills to achieve its goals.

Investing in better-trained human capital

Technical vocational education and training (TVET), access to information and communication technologies, and skills development are critical for Africans to gain access to employment and move into professional positions.

The success of the AfCFTA will therefore depend on the capacity of African governments to tap into the potential offered by human capital.

It is therefore important that education sector plans include economics and entrepreneurship components focused on the appropriate skills—those needed by enterprises.

These components can also be incorporated into general or technical and vocational education with the aim of supporting the acquisition of practical skills and attitudes as well as an understanding and knowledge of the professions in different economic and social sectors.

Joint school/enterprise training

Formal TVET systems are not well aligned with market needs and rarely take informal workers into account. Work-study training programs could meet these needs at a time when skilled labor is in short supply on the African market.

This type of training involves schools and enterprises. Student training is based on a program that is jointly developed by these two stakeholders and is aligned with the country’s economic and social needs. The stakeholders play the same role and operate at the same level with a view to the professional development of students.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution has ushered in a wide range of new jobs, which has led to a growing demand for professionals with science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) skills in Africa.

Deriving benefit from a young population

Africa has an invaluable asset and a major comparative advantage relative to other nations: 60% of its population is under age 25.

Robust investment in quality education, with emphasis on STEM education and innovation, must be urgently made if Africa wants to position itself as the next global economic pillar and equalizer.

Increasing the number of young people and adults, particularly women, with the relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, required for employment and entrepreneurship calls for collaboration between member States and partners to make the AfCFTA a reality.

In conclusion, to successfully implement the AfCFTA and cushion the negative effects of the coronavirus on economic growth, it is important to support strengthening of the skills of the African labor force through technical and vocational training as well as STEM-based education.

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African tribe, long marginalised in India, seeks sporting glory

Rohit Majgul has weathered racism and rejection in India as part of a marginalised community tracing its roots back to Africa – but he still dreams of bringing sporting glory to his country.

The 16-year-old is part of a group of teens practising martial arts in a sun-baked field near Jambur village in India’s western state of Gujarat’s Junagadh district, where his parents work as manual labourers.

Growing up around open drains and swarms of flies in the remote village, he and other members of the local Siddi community have been abused for their distinctive dark features and curly hair.

Majgul, a school dropout, sees his judo training as the only way to escape a life riddled with poverty and discrimination.

“No one believes me when I say I am Indian,” he told AFP news agency. “They think I am African, they call me by different abusive names, they tease me.

“I have also been thrown off the bus because of my colour, but I quietly endure everything because I want to do well in sports and carve my own identity.”

Two years ago, Majgul won silver in judo at the Asia-Pacific Youth Games.

His determination to represent India on the international stage was boosted by a government push to identify athletes in the Siddi community, which is believed to have descended from the Bantu peoples of sub-Saharan Africa.

Some are believed to have been brought over during the Islamic conquest of the subcontinent as early as the eighth century.

Many others were likely brought by the Portuguese to India between three and five centuries ago, researchers say.

But they are still viewed as outsiders.

‘No one cares about us’

When British colonial authorities abolished slavery in the 19th century, Siddis fled to the jungles in fear of their safety.

Gradually they settled on India’s western coast, working as farmhands and labourers while adopting the local culture and languages.

India is now home to about 250,000 Siddis, according to researchers, with most living in Gujarat and Karnataka – with both coastal states facing the eastern tip of Africa from across the Arabian Sea.

Those living in Gujarat are Muslim, making them targets for further discrimination in Hindu-majority India.

“No one cares about us. There are no facilities in our village – no piped water, no proper toilets, nothing,” said Majgul.

Near his home, children with tangled, unwashed hair ran barefoot across narrow alleys lined with shanties.

Hope came in the form of a scheme launched in 1987 by a government eager to boost the country’s dismal Summer Olympics tally, with Indian athletes taking just nine gold medals in the last century.

“We were exploring whether the Siddis had a genetic advantage,” athletics coach R Sundar Raju, who was part of the project, told AFP.

“Normally an Indian athlete takes some years before making it to the national level, but the Siddis were doing so in barely three years.”

But authorities ditched the project seven years later, after realising the impoverished Siddi were more interested in a linked programme that encouraged Indians to pursue sporting careers by giving them highly sought-after government jobs.

“They came from such poor families that the moment they secured jobs under a sports quota, they grabbed the opportunity and left the training midway,” Raju said.

‘I used to curse my fate’

In the years since, some Siddis in Gujarat instead eked out a living by staging dance performances for tourists or trained as forest guides for Gir National Park, a sanctuary for endangered lions.

The state government revived the programme in 2015, focusing mainly on judo and athletics. Promising Siddi youngsters now train at a state-run sports academy.

A non-profit group in Karnataka is also mentoring 50 aspiring athletes from the community.

“We felt that this particular group has high potential but has been highly neglected,” said Nitish Chiniwar, founder of the Bridges of Sports Foundation.

Shahnaz Lobi, an aspiring shot-putter from Jambur, jumped at the chance to pursue a sporting career after watching her labourer father struggle to feed his family.

“I used to curse my fate. But one day I got to know about the sports trials and I took part in them,” she said.

Lobi told AFP that she dreamed of competing in the 2024 Olympics.

“I was selected and sent to the state sports academy. I have no friends there but it doesn’t bother me. I just want to win an Olympic medal and let the world know I am Indian.”

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Afghans work to stem polio rise amid violence, pandemic

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan is trying to inoculate millions of children against polio after pandemic lockdowns stalled the effort to eradicate the crippling disease. But the recent killing of three vaccinators points to the dangers facing the campaign as turmoil grows in the country.

The three women were gunned down in two separate attacks on March 30 as they carried out door-to-door vaccinations in the eastern city of Jalalabad.

It was the first time that vaccination workers have been killed in a decade of door-to-door inoculations against the children’s disease in Afghanistan. Such attacks have been more common in neighboring Pakistan, where at least 70 vaccinators and security personnel connected to vaccination campaigns have been killed since 2011.

Afghanistan and Pakistan are the only two countries in the world where polio is still endemic, and both have seen a disturbing increase in cases in recent years. In Afghanistan, 56 new cases were reported in 2020, the highest number since 2011, when 80 cases were registered.

Adela Mohammadi, a 21-year-old vaccinator worker in Kabul, said her parents didn’t want her to go out to do inoculations on the day after the three women were killed in Jalalabad.

“I went, but with a lot of worry,” she told The Associated Press. “I was thinking what if someone was waiting for us and suddenly started shooting at us.”

“But at the end of the day, I love my job — I serve my people, especially children,” she said. “Such attacks can’t stop us from what we are doing.”

In Pakistan, officials have struggled to overcome deep public suspicion over vaccines particularly since the U.S. used a fake vaccination campaign to unearth the hideout of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. Hard-line clerics and militants have stoked the fears by depicting polio vaccinations as a Western plot to sterilize Muslim children.

In Afghanistan, some have also been suspicious of vaccinations, but that rarely if ever translated into violence. The new killings appear to reflect the disturbing rise in chaos in the past year, when the country has seen increasing targeted killings, sometimes of professionals or civil society figures, sometimes just seemingly at random.

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for some of the violence. But the perpetrators of many attacks remain unknown, including the killings of the vaccination workers.

The violence adds a new worry as Afghanistan struggles to stamp out a disease that has largely been eliminated around the world. In children, polio can cause partial paralysis. Since 2010, the country has been carrying out regular inoculation campaigns in which workers go door to door, giving the vaccine to children. Most of the workers are women, since they can get better access to mothers and children.

Last year, authorities had to call off four planned inoculation rounds because of lockdowns against the coronavirus pandemic, though they did manage to conduct two rounds.

Authorities say nearly 10 million children are now in need of vaccination against polio. Of those, authorities are unable to reach some 3 million children living in areas under the control of Taliban insurgents. One round of inoculations was carried out earlier this year, and a second was launched March 29 — and continued despite the killings the next day. During the four-day second round, more than 6 million children were vaccinated, according to Health Ministry spokesman Ghulam Dastagir Nazari.

In Afghanistan’s deeply conservative society, traumatized by decades of war, some are suspicious, viewing inoculations as a Western trick.

Mohammadi has been participating in door-to-door campaigns the past three years. She works in somewhat better educated parts of the capital, and most families she approaches allow their children to be given a dose. Public worries over the coronavirus and eagerness for treatment have made some more open to polio vaccinations, she said.

Still, she regularly faces sometimes angry resistance from some families who claim vaccines are forbidden by religion or harm children. “There are families who don’t even open their gates for us, they just shout, if we don’t leave, they will come out and beat us,” she said.

The continued impact of polio can be seen at the International Committee of the Red Cross’ Orthopedic Program in Afghanistan. It mainly provides artificial legs to the many wounded in war or by roadside bombs or mines. But it also offers services to anyone with mobility issues — including people affected by polio.

In 2020, nearly 5,000 polio patients received treatment at the program, including physiotherapy, medical equipment and orthopedic devices.

Maiwa Gul, 35, a polio patient from eastern Khost province, was at the center on a recent day getting repairs to the leg prostheses that he needs to walk. He urged that all children be vaccinated. “Otherwise, they will eventually be in my position, needing someone to help them,” he said.

Merjan Rasekh, head of public awareness at the Health Ministry’s Polio Eradication Program, said the killing of the three vaccinators was “painful.”

“If this situation continues, it would definitely have a negative impact on the morale of our health workers,” he said.

But the young women at the forefront of the vaccination drive said it must continue.

“If we are afraid and don’t go out to vaccinate, our children and all of us will face problems,” said 22-year-old Shabana Maani.

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ANGOLA AND SPAIN BET ON AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES

Luanda - The governments of Angola and of the Kingdom of Spain on Thursday in Luanda formalised the signing of memorandums of understanding in the agriculture and fisheries sectors, as well as on fishing and aquaculture cooperation.

In the presence of the Angolan Head of State, João Lourenço, and the President of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez, memoranda of understanding were also initialled in the areas of industry, trade/tourism and air transport.

The memorandum on agriculture and fisheries provides for livestock, forestry and agri-food development.

In the area of fisheries and aquaculture cooperation, the focus is on closer links between the sectoral institutions of the two countries.

The document between the ministries of Industry and Trade of Angola and Spain focuses on promoting institutional cooperation in the industrial policy segment, via the exchange of information and knowledge.

Air transport

During Pedro Sánchez's 48-hour visit to Angola an agreement on air transport was also formalised. The agreement aims to ensure the rights to operate regular international air services between Angola and Spain.

Bilateral cooperation relations between Angola and the Kingdom of Spain are based on the General Cooperation Agreement signed on 20 May 1987, and the Complementary Agreement to the General Agreement signed in November 1987.

The President of the Government of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, ends today his working visit to Angola.

ANGOLAN GOVERNMENT PLEDGES TO IMPROVE HEALTH SERVICES

Luanda - The Angolan government is committed to building a health system capable of ensuring universal coverage, to guarantee the equality of health services and social cohesion.

This was stressed by the Health minister, Sílvia Lutucuta, when she was chairing the central act in allusion to the World Health Day that was marked under the motto “Together for a fairer and healthier world”.

The minister recalled that guaranteeing the right to health for all people is an assumption enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic of Angola, with a focus on the quality of care.

According to the minister, the realization of these aspirations becomes more challenging and impaired by the impact of Covid-19 on economic, financial and human resources, not only in Angola but also in the world.

Covid-19, she added, has also become a threat to achieving sustainable development goals, which see young people as key players in the country's socio-economic development.

She called on the population to redouble biosafety measures in view of the new strains of the pandemic that are already circulating in the country, avoiding gatherings, and adopting preventive measures like washing hands frequently and making the correct use of the mask.

 

Sílvia Lutucuta said that in order to create a modern, fair and equitable country, it is necessary to promote the active participation of young people, particularly girls, in development tasks, reducing the gender gap, encouraging the empowerment of women, increasing health literacy as instrument of change. 

 

The minister stressed that the country is focused on the protection of the population most at risk of falling ill or dying as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, by effecting a vaccination programme , whose aim is to  immunize 15 million citizens.

 

According to Sílvia Lutucuta, the Health sector was able, during this difficult year due to Covid-19, to respond to urgent problems with the implementation of specific action strategies, particularly for the reduction of maternal, neonatal and infant mortality and malnutrition. 

 

Sílvia Lutucuta stressed that the activity of the sector is still focused on the control of major endemic diseases, particularly tuberculosis, malaria and HIV / AIDS. 

Minister Lutucuta, highlighted the efforts of health professionals to ensure an HIV-free generation, as well as to boost programs to improve the health of adolescents and young people. 

 

World Health Day, celebrated annually on April 7, is an event that serves to reflect on the need to promote health for all, creating conditions for a more equitable and inclusive future. 

COVID-19: ANGOLA REPORTS 98 NEW INFECTIONS, 12 RECOVERIES

Luanda - Angola announced on Thursday the record of 98 new cases, two deaths and 12 recovered patients, in the last 24 hours.

Among the new cases, 89 were diagnosed in Luanda, 7 in Cabinda, 1 in Zaire and 1 in Bié.

The list of new cases, whose ages range from 2 to 86 years, includes 51 mem and 57 women.

The deaths involve two Angolan citizens in the provinces of Luanda and Cunene.

Among the recovered patients 10 reside in Luanda and two in Huila.

In the last 24 hours, laboratory technicians processed 3,347 samples.

The Covid-19 pandemic in Angola has affected 23,108 people, with 549 deaths, 21,557 recovered and 1,002 active. Of those active, four are critical, 11 severe, 40 moderate, 28 mild and 919 asymptomatic.

There are 47 citizens in institutional quarantine, while 83 people are hospitalised in treatment centres.

The authorities are keeping 1,012 contacts of positive cases under epidemiological surveillance.

JUST GIVE ME A REASON - PINK🖤

Right from the start

You were a thief, you stole my heart

And I, your willing victim

I let you see the parts of me, that weren't all that pretty

And with every touch you fixed them

Now you've been talking in your sleep oh oh

Things you never say to me oh oh

Tell me that you've had enough

Of our love, our love

Just give me a reason, just a little bit's enough

Just a second we're not broken just bent, and we can learn to love again

It's in the stars, it's been written in the scars on our hearts

We're not broken just bent, and we can learn to love again

I'm sorry I don't understand

Where all of this is coming from

I thought that we were fine (oh we had everything)

Your head is running wild again

My dear we still have everythin'

And it's all in your mind (yeah but this is happenin')

You've been havin' real bad dreams oh oh

You used to lie so close to me oh oh

There's nothing more than empty sheets between our love, our love

Oh our love, our love

Just give me a reason, just a little bit's enough

Just a second we're not broken just bent and we can learn to love again

I never stop, you're still written in the scars on my heart

You're not broken just bent and we can learn to love again

Oh tear ducts and rust

I'll fix it for us

We're collecting dust, but our love's enough

You're holding it in

You're pouring a drink

No nothing is as bad as it seems

We'll come clean

Just give me a reason just a little bit's enough

Just a second we're not broken just bent and we can learn to love again

It's in the stars, it's been written in the scars on our hearts

That we're not broken just bent and we can learn to love again

Just give me a reason, just a little bit's enough

Just a second we're not broken just bent, and we can learn to love again

It's in the stars, it's been written in the scars on our hearts

That we're not broken just bent, and we can learn to love again

Oh we can learn to love again

Oh we can learn to love again

Oh that we're not broken just bent and we can learn to love again