Want To Make Money In Africa? Start By Solving Any Of These 8 Serious Problems.

#2 - Unemployment

With one of the world’s youngest populations, Africa’s large and growing pool of unemployed labour is one of its biggest problems. Young people, many of who are physically and mentally capable, cannot find the jobs they need to earn a decent income for their upkeep and basic survival. Depending on whose figures you’re looking at, the unemployment rate on our continent is huge (up to 50 percent).

Since jobs must exist before people can be employed, does it mean that there are no jobs in Africa? Of course not! In fact, Africa’s economy has been growing steadily for over a decade and six of the ten fastest growing economies in the world are in Africa. A growing economy is often a clear sign that more jobs are being created. However, the main problem with the job market in Africa is that it is largely disorganized. It is quite difficult for businesses and employers to find potential employees with the right skills, education and experience for the positions they want to fill. To a considerable part, Africa’s unemployment problem has to do with information sharing rather than total unavailability of jobs.

Several smart Africans are already rising to the challenge of solving our continent’s unemployment problems. In Kenya for example, three ambitious entrepreneurs started M-Kazi, a mobile phone-based job recruitment service that allows job seekers to get information about available job vacancies and helps employers to target the right talents. This SMS-based information service is used by thousands of Kenyans on basic mobile phones with no internet capability which are still very popular in many parts of Africa.

In Nigeria, , which was started by three university undergrads in 2009, has become Nigeria’s Number One job search and recruitment portal. In a country where more than 40 million able-bodied people are unemployed, is helping millions of people to find their dream jobs. Seeing the huge potentials in this business model, Tiger Global, a New-York based fund with investments in Facebook and LinkedIn became an investor in in 2011… a little less than three years after it started! The service now has a subsidiary in Ghana and plans to roll out across Africa in the near future.

Apart from providing critical information services that help employers and potential employees to find each other, there is also another angle to the unemployment problem in Africa - unemployability. Many of the people looking for jobs on our continent do not have the required education, training, skills and experience that make them desirable for employment. Businesses and entrepreneurs who can offer solutions to this problem in the form of skill acquisition programs, education and training are very likely to enjoy huge benefits.