Create jobs, Obama tells African leaders
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Closing a historic visit to Africa, US President Barack Obama yesterday urged the continent’s leaders to prioritize creating jobs and opportunity for the next generation of young people or risk sacrificing future economic potential to further instability and disorder.
He said the “urgent task” of generating jobs for a population that is expected to double to around 2 billion people in the coming decades will be “an enormous undertaking”. But he said it can be achieved with United States’ help.
“Africa will need to generate millions more jobs than it is doing now,” Obama said in a speech to the entire continent delivered from the headquarters of the African Union, a member organization of African nations, in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. “And time is of the essence.”
“The choices made today will shape the trajectory of Africa — and therefore the world — for decades to come,” said Obama, who is seen by the people of Africa as one of their own. It was the first speech to the AU by a sitting American president.
The speech marked the end of a five-day visit to Africa that included a stop in Kenya, homeland of Obama’s late father.
Obama also called on Africa’s leaders to make their countries more attractive to foreign investment by cleaning up corruption, upholding democratic freedoms, supporting human rights, and willingly and peacefully leaving office when their terms expire.
Obama, who is more than halfway through his second and final four-year term, said “I don’t understand this” phenomenon of leaders who refuse to quit when their terms end.
He referred to Burundi’s leader, who was just elected to a controversial third term although he is constitutionally limited to two. The announcement that President Pierre Nkurunziza was seeking a third term sparked days of unrest across the country.
“The point is, I don’t understand why people want to stay so long — especially when they’ve got a lot of money,” Obama said, calling on the AU to use its authority to help ensure African leaders stick to their term limits and follow their constitutions.
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