Demographic growth still a huge challenge to LDCs countries including Tanzania

United Nations Resident Coordinator in Tanzania, Dr. Alberic Kacou speaks to invited dignitaries during the official launching of the Least Developed Countries Report 2013 today at the ILO conference room in Dar es Salaam.

By Damas Makangale.

The Least Developed Countries Report 2013 has indicated that despite the slow global recovery, real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth in the LDCs has picked up from 4.5 per cent in 2011 to 5.3 percent in 2012.

The LDCs report that was prepared by United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) which was launched today said that the demographic change affects the environmental and socio-economic development of all countries, but especially the most vulnerable of the LDCs.

The report said that although the proportion of people in those countries who live on less than USD 1.25 per day (in extreme poverty) has declined, the number has continued to rise due to high population growth.

Report explained further that equally worrisome is the fact that the LDCs working age population will increase on average by 15.7 million people per year between 2010 and 2050 and in 11 LDCs by at least 0.5 million a year.

The report underscored that the projected increases are highest in the African LDCs including, Tanzania, where population will expand by more than 1 million people a year and the situation will pose a major employment and development challenge for the LDCs.

“Faced with the high fertility rates which averaging 4.4 children per woman during the period of 2005 -2010, the realization of a potential demographic dividend (where the dependency ratio is at its lowest) will require increased investment in the training, education and employment of youth,”

Ambassador Maral Namfua addresses the invited dignitaries and reporters during the official launching of the LDCs report 2013 which highlighted the challenges of employment and demographic increases in LDCs countries especially in Africa.

“The LDCs demographic growth dynamics, together with the expanding youth bulge, will mean declining dependency ratios but a growing labour supply,” the report statement said.

The report said that the demographic increases is a challenge for LDCs countries including Tanzania with 70 per cent population composed of youth who are below the age of 30; which begs the question, how to create productive jobs and sustainably raise living standards of the population?

On his part United Nations Resident Coordinator in Tanzania, Alberic Kacou said that LDCs reports provide a comprehensive source of socio-economic analysis and data on the world’s most impoverished countries.

He said that this year the Report has a more special theme: Growth with employment for inclusive and sustainable development, under that theme the report examines the link between investment, growth and employment.

Kacou added that more specifically, it considers how LDCs can promote growth that generates an adequate number of quality jobs and that enables them to reach what UNCTAD believes are their most urgent and pivotal goals, both now and in the post-2015 development agenda: poverty reduction, inclusive growth and sustainable development.

The report notes that, in most LDCs, the main source of employment for the growing labour force is still agriculture. However, a high concentration of labour in agriculture combined with low productivity implies low and even declining living standards for rural populations.

As a result more and more young people are seeking work outside agriculture, and urban centres are increasingly becoming the main attraction, hence rapidly urbanizing the LDCs population.

United Nations Resident Coordinator in Tanzania, Alberic Kacou and Ambassador Maral Namfua and International Labour Organization Deputy Country Director Ms.Hopolang Phororo cuts a ribbon to officiate the LDCs report 2013 in Dar es Salaam at the ILO conference room.

Kacou went on to say that in such a context, the Report proposes a policy framework that links investment with growth and employment creation to generate inclusive and sustainable development.

“The framework is based on the assumption that maximizing the employment creation potential of growth will not happen without the development of productive capacities which are: the productive resources; entrepreneurial capabilities and production linkages,” He said.

The Report further explains that the development of productive capacities occurs through economic processes that countries have to undergo for sustained development. These are; the investment necessary to build domestic capital stock (physical capital, human capital, and so forth), which economists refer to as capital accumulation; structural change (or structural transformation); and building the capabilities of the domestic enterprise sector.

However, the question is how to practically integrate these synergies into a framework for optimizing employment, which also requires choosing policies that do not contradict one another.

United Nations Resident Coordinator in Tanzania, Alberic Kacou displays a LDCs report to reporters (not in a picture) right is ILO Deputy Director Ms. Hopolang Phororo and left is Ambasssador Maral Namfua.

Some of High Commissioners and Ambassadors attended a launching ceremony at the ILO conference room.

Some of the invited dignitaries and participants are following up the launching ceremony of LDCs report 2013.