Twenty years of regional population growth at almost 3 per cent per year has outpaced economic gains, leaving sub-Saharan Africans, on average, 22 per cent poorer than they were in the mid-1970s. The region’s progress is also hampered by large-scale migrations of people trying to escape poverty and political instability. Contributing to this migration is the large youth population, which fuels a rapid increase in new entrants to the labour market, and high fertility rates, outpacing the capacity of economies to generate a sufficient numbers of jobs. Even where fertility has declined, the lack of employment opportunities will make it difficult for countries to capitalize on the.
