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Mwampanga Mwana Nanga

Abigail Mawonde and Praise Bvumbamera
Youths should create their own employment instead of waiting for someone to do so for them if the African continent is to successfully fight the scourge of unemployment and hunger, the Dean of African Diplomatic Corps has said. Addressing delegates attending Africa Day celebrations in Harare last week, DRC Ambassador Mwampanga Mwana Nanga said it was imperative for the youths to actively participate in national development matters.

The celebrations were organised by various organisations including the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and the Association for Development of Education in Africa Working Group on Education Management and Policy Support.

The theme of the Africa Day celebrations is Harnessing the demographic dividend through investments in youth.

Said Ambassador Mwana Nanga: “There is a thing that goes across people’s minds that someone has to create jobs for the youth. I think that in order to give jobs to our youths, we need to think outside the box.

“If our youths have to be sitting there waiting for someone to come and create jobs for them, then we are in for a very long journey.

“If we stay in the box that has been created for us that someone, somewhere, has to create jobs for these youths, then we will never succeed.”

He added: “After all, what is a job? A job is just doing something, providing either a service or a product.

“Now we are saying that Africa is spending billions on importing things that we can create or produce ourselves.

“That is a shame!

“Africa has everything, the only thing that we have to do is to get outside the box and think outside the box and see how all this potential that we have, be it the youths, be it the natural resources, be it renewable energy can be used to create employment and make our own products.”

Ambassador Mwana Nanga said Africa should consider importing machinery and technology for processing various goods, rather than importing finished products whose raw materials were from the continent.

Addressing the same gathering, Primary and Secondary Education Deputy Minister Professor Paul Mavhima said Africa was a rich continent whose resources were not being fully exploited.

“I do not know if there is any country that is richer in diamonds than the Democratic Republic of Congo as far as mineral resources are concerned,” he said.

“Our own country’s per capita is the highest as far as natural resources are concerned. So, we are by no means poor. The only problem that we have is that we have not transformed that wealth into something that is usable.

“Very few countries in Africa have visions and many of them when they craft a vision, it is done for ceremonial reasons and is not a living document that brings everyone together in pursuit of that vision.

“Another point that increases our wealth is the fact that we have a very educated population. In basic terms, we have 92 percent literacy rate and the education system is one of those management systems that should lead to the natural transformation of African countries from poverty to wealth.”

Africa Day is an annual commemoration of the founding of the Organisation of African Unity, now the African Union, on May 25, 1963.