Decent Rural Employment

West Africa: Addressing child labour in agriculture to foster rural youth employment

11/12/2015

Youth unemployment is a global concern, especially in the agricultural world. Rural youth are migrating to urban areas, rural population is aging, young people lose interest in agriculture – putting rural and agricultural development at risk.

This is a critical issue in Africa, where more than half of the population is young, under the age of 25. Young people are needed to bring innovations in the agricultural sector, making it more adaptive to changes in the markets, and to meet the growing demand for food in the decades to come. Youth in agriculture will have to be the innovators and drivers of this change and agriculture offers unlimited opportunities for decent youth employment.

Despite rural youth unemployment, nearly 100 million child labourers worldwide are working in agriculture. Child labour impairs the development of children, reducing children's future opportunities for a skilled and decent job.

Transforming child labour in agriculture to immediate, and future, rural youth employment was the core objective of the multi-stakeholder workshop organized in Dakar (Senegal), from 8 to 10 December 2015, by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Training Centre of the International Labour Organization (ITC-ILO). The event took place under the framework of the programme Integrated Country Approach (ICA) for promoting decent rural employment, implemented in Senegal in collaboration with the Government.

The workshop targeted Mali, Niger and Senegal and brought together 28 participants from the Governments, mostly from the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, as well as employer and worker organizations, producer organizations, civil society and international civil servants. At the workshop, participants shared diverse country and sectorial experiences, strengthened the synergies for intervention amongst different stakeholders and discussed joint solutions.

"When children go to school, they acquire agricultural skills and knowledge, which they can teach to their peers, elders and families, and modernize agriculture to fight poverty" said Ibrahim Habi, from the National Chambers of Agricultural Network in Niger (RECA).

Participating countries are committed to addressing child labour in agriculture and, by doing so, creating a conducive environment for rural youth employment. In 2015, Niger established a national consultative framework on child labour in agriculture; 70 national agricultural stakeholders are planning the activities for 2016. In Mali, the Government is implementing a project that aims to reduce rural poverty through youth employment and is also updating the National Roadmap to Eliminate Child Labour in Agriculture. In Senegal, within the national dialogue on youth employment, FAO is currently implementing with the Government its Integrated Country Approach to create decent job opportunities for rural youth. The workshop in Dakar gave an opportunity to exchange such experiences and strengthen the action, it is another step forward towards the promotion of decent youth employment. Each country adopted a concrete plan of activities to implement at national level, which will be technically supported by FAO and ITC-ILO.

"We would like to support the establishment of a national observatory for child labour and youth employment in agriculture. We also seek to establish a working group on youth and the use of ICT in agriculture to promote dissemination and sensitization of good agricultural practices as a mean to decrease child labour and increase youth employability" said Oumar Syll, FAO's National Coordinator in Senegal for the ICA programme.

An online platform will be established to capture all the information delivered and exchanged and will serve as an information sharing tool. A second workshop will be delivered for Anglophone African countries following the same format. The ultimate goal of these set of workshops is to enhance national efforts towards the prevention and reduction of child labour and foster decent rural youth employment.