14. JOSHUA KIIZA

A Critical Examination of the Role played by the Youth in harnessing the Mineral Resource Sector.

  1. INTRODUCTION

“It’s within our capabilities as young people of Africa to change our continent. We have what it takes, but it is going to take us everything we have.” – Given, Tanzania. This essay seeks to discuss how youth in Africa can harness the mineral resource sector in the context of bringing on board new innovative ideas and technologies that will aid creation of more employment opportunities for more youth, improve standards of living and aid African economies attain sustainable economic growth and development. In the ensuing paragraphs, there will be a definition for the following key concepts: youth, sustainable economic development and mineral resource sector. The essay will later on discuss the various strategies the youth can put in place to attain utility of the mineral resource sector.

  1. Youth

The African Union (AU) refers to youth as people between the ages of 15 to 35 years of age. Almost 60% of Africa’s youth are under the age of 25 and This makes Africa the second youngest continent in the world. By 2020, Africa’s population between 15 – 35 year olds represented almost half a billion people, 454.5 million and by 2030, it is projected to have increased by 42%.

  1. Sustainable Economic Development.

Sustainable economic development refers to a national initiative built on local economies’ unique assets to address their individual challenges and provide quantifiable real-world benefits. It’s a practical, implementable toolkit that tailors strategies to work for youth, businesses, and institutions. The Sustainable Development framework identifies a county’s specific needs and untapped opportunities and then uses them to lift people out of poverty and bolster economic resilience. This aids to raise incomes, increases resource efficiencies, access to jobs and services and creating new employment opportunities.

  1. Mineral Resource Sector.

The mineral resource of Africa harbours a concentration of solid material in or on the earth’s crust and is regulated by the government in the respective economies. The mineral resource sector in Africa is the second largest in the world and accounts for 30% of the world’s mineral resources in the world producing more than 60% metal and mineral products. These include a high deposit of diamonds, vanadium, manganese, platinum cobalt and gold.

  1. Role played by the youth in harnessing the mineral resource sector in Africa.

  1. Embracing start-up culture to find new disruptive ideas and technologies to grow the industry.

Africa has one of the most innovative and vibrant youth in the world. These have the potential of informing new technological strategies in which minerals can be extracted at cheaper cost and given more value for better global prices and growth. Youth started enterprises employ more than 10 million youth in Africa annually. With youth starting up enterprises in the mineral sector space for example in the extraction, value addiction and logistics sector, more job opportunities will be created for the other youth. Creation of more enterprises will also encourage more mineral deposits exploitation which plays a great role in harnessing the mineral potential in Africa. The start-up culture and sustainability of youth enterprises can also be strengthened through encouraging youth to join innovation clubs like The Innovation Village, Uganda, Wennovation Hub, Nigeria, Silicon Cape Initiative, South Africa, iHub, Kenya and Flat6Labs, Egypt. These will aid start-up entreprenuers in the mineral sector space gain mentorship, access to capital and enterprises management which are vital for growth and sustainable development.

  1. Leveraging the current enterprise funding opportunities for youth to grow and scale.

One of the cardinal reasons why youth enterprises were failing to grow and scale in the past years in Africa was due to lack of capital. But in the recent years, various entrepreneurship oriented philanthropy organizations have come up to offer grants, seed capital and equity capital to youth led innovative enterprises across Africa. These are giving room for young entrepreneurs to secure funds to drive productivity and scale their enterprises. For example, organizations like, The Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF), envision to offer 10,000 aspiring African Entrepreneurs an opportunity to benefit from $100 million grant to create 1,000,000 jobs and contribute $10 billion in annual revenues to Africa’s economy over the next 10 years. The organization has dedicated over $100 million to aid grow scalable youth enterprises in Africa.  Anzisha Prize in South Africa dedicates close to $100,000 annually and entrepreneurship boot camp in South Africa to young entrepreneurs between the ages of 15 – 22 years to grow their enterprises. Venture Capital firms like MyGrowthFund in South Africa have come up to provide equity to most promising businesses in Africa. With the presence of these grants, youth with innovative ideas and businesses in the mineral resource sector can be able to tap into these opportunities to grow and scale. This too is a catalyst for creation of more jobs for the many unemployed youths in Africa leading to sustainable economic growth.

  1. Joining Youth Boards in the Corporate sector to help the mining industry innovate. 

According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), millennials prefer businesses that are more ethical and environmentally friendly. They are also more purpose driven and tech-savvy. Having youth on boards can help mineral companies come up with effective technology oriented ways in which they can extract, add value and transport mineral resource in a cheaper and better way. A number of companies in the mining space in Africa are embracing the culture of involving youth in their decision making ecosystem through appointing them on their boards, this has been done by South Africa mining conglomerate, Africa Rainbow Minerals (ARM) and this has aided the company cut production costs through employing innovative technological and environmentally friendly tools to extract minerals which has increased their annual turnover in the long run to more than R15 Billion.

  1. Conclusion.

In conclusion, it is evident that youth play a vital role in sparking creativity and innovation in the mineral resource sector. This aids to foster job creation for more youth, improves standards of living of most Africans and encourages considerable revitalisation of most African economies leading to sustained economic growth which is a step towards poverty eradication in Africa.

Notes.

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