High fertility and declining mortality rates have led to a very young population in most Sub-Saharan African countries. The region s labor force is expected to increase by 11 million people per year over the next 10 years. Most of this increase will be new entrants seeking their first job. While the younger generation is better educated than their parents, they often lack the means to translate that education into productive employment. Today, most work is in nonwage jobs on farms and in household enterprises. Even if greater economic activity were to create the conditions for robust growth and economic transformation, the private modern wage sector in low- and lower-middle-income countries could not absorb all the applicants. This report focuses on how to improve the quality of all jobs and to meet the aspirations of youth. It emphasizes that building a strong foundation for human capital development can play an important role in boosting earnings, and it argues that a balanced approach focused on building skills, raising productivity, and increasing the demand for labor is necessary. Youth Employment in Sub-Saharan Africa notes that many youth employment challenges are problems of employment in general. However, youth is a time of transition, and young people face particular constraints to accessing productive work. The report brings together original analysis of household and labor force surveys; it reviews the experience of a number of promising interventions across the continent; it draws from qualitative studies in several countries; and it surveys the most up-to-date evidence from rigorous evaluations of policies and programs. From this information base, the report provides guidance to policy makers on how to intervene along two dimensions human capital and the business environment and in three priority areas agriculture, household enterprises, and the modern wage sector. The ultimate goals are to increase productivity, improve livelihoods, and multiply opportunities for young people."

Coming out of civil war, Mozambique had an enormous education deficit. In 1997, five years after the peace treaty, 80 percent of the labor force reported to have no education at all, and school enrollment outside the large cities was miserable. Since then, Mozambique has come a long way in improving access to lower and upper primary through sustained investments in education infrastructure and introduction of important reforms. The primary education reform programs implemented in 2004, combined with a continuing program of school construction and teacher training, resulted in a 70% increase in enrollment in EP1 over 4 years with the highest gains for the poorest and most vulnerable children. Yet there was only a slight increase in student/teacher ratios. How did Mozambique do this, and what are the lessons going foward? The most important part of the reform appears to be the removal of the national school fee for primary level and the provision of free textbooks. These reforms provided the boost that poorer households needed to get their children in school. Continued investments in school construction helped as well. However, despite these efforts, there is still an education deficit. In 2008, over 1 million children who should be attending primary school were not. Over half of the children who began grade 1 in 2000 did not complete grade 7 by 2008. One reason is that school costs remain high, especially for grades 6 and above (EP2+). And quality is still not adequate in many schools. As a result, the transformation of the labor force is slow, as over half of the females who entered the labor force in the decade since 1997 did not even complete EP1. Analysis of employment and livelihood opportunities indicates that the transition out of subsistence agriculture requires primary education. This means that to achieve inclusive growth, the key strategic objective of the education system needs to be ensuring that as many children as possible start and finish primary school with competency in the basic subjects, as well as the skills to allow them to find productive economic activities and make these activities pay This book is aimed at policy makers in the education field. .

This is a story of an ordinary girl from Germany who became caught up in the inner workings of the Nazi war machine. Louise Fox had grown up while the Nazis steadily took full control of the country and like so many of her age group Nazism was considered to be just normal. As a teenager she was first involved in the effort to provide anti-aircraft equipment for the Luftwaffe and to kit out Rommel for the North African campaign. She was a hard worker and was promoted to the rank of captain in the Luftwaffe's supreme command headquarters in Potsdam, near Berlin. She caught Hermann Goering's* eye when he awarded her a medal for bravery in the capture of a downed British airman, and was sent to work in the Air Ministry making appointments and assisting Goering. As the war intensified on two fronts Louise was transferred back to Potsdam to manage the huge task of securing appropriate ammunition supplies for the Luftwaffe, a job she held for the rest of the war. She married an airman who three weeks later was killed in action. Louise was posted with her colleagues to the Eastern front and escaped with them all in Hitler's 'strategic retreat' ahead of the Red Army.In the last few months of the war she was captured and imprisoned by the Americans. She escaped and began an event-filled 1,000-kilometre hike to the safety of relatives. Life was difficult after the war and Louise entered the black market and was imprisoned. She eventually found a pen pal in Tasmania and much to the amazement of friends migrated there - selling Volkswagens to make a living. She still lives in Australia. *Goering was the Deputy Vice Chancellor of the Third Reich. Louise was his secretary.

The story of Mozambique is one of successful transformation. Since 1994, when it faced a decimated infrastructure, a weak economy, and fragile institutions, it has sustained high economic growth and has made tangible reductions in poverty. Its recovery from civil conflict and extreme poverty make it a showcase for other nations embarking on similar transitions. Still, more than half of the population lives in poverty. Gaps persist between city dwellers and farmers, men and women, rich and poor. And although growth continues, there is concern that Mozambique's drive to reduce poverty may lose momentum as happens in many countries recovering from conflict. If the successes of the past are to be extended into the future, policy makers must take stock of what has worked and what has not as they develop new ways of improving the living standards of all Mozambicans. 'Beating the Odds: Sustaining Inclusion in Mozambique's Growing Economy' focuses on changes in poverty and household community welfare from 1997 through 2003. It uses monetary, human, and social indicators in combination with quantitative and qualitative approaches to understand poverty trends within the country and the dynamics that shaped them. Intended to support the development and implementation of pro-poor policies, its integration of poverty, gender, and social analysis will be of particular interest to policy makers, development practitioners, academics, and researchers.

Governments in Africa and their stakeholders have been disappointed with the number of wage and salary jobs that have been created over the last decade or more. Even in countries that experienced both strong economic growth and rapid poverty reduction during this period, job creation has lagged behind expectations. Faced with a rapidly growing labor force, Africa has to find new ways to create better paying jobs. 'Working Out of Poverty' reviews the literature and presents original research by the authors analyzing job creation in Sub-Saharan Africa in light of economic performance over the decade and more since 1995. The book identifies factors that impact job creation, both inside the labor market (such as labor supply and demand) and outside of it (overall investment climate.) 'Working Out of Poverty' focuses on the following key questions: How has the structure of economic growth and labor demand shaped the job creation process? What policies have been pursued to raise the quality of the African labor force? What does the expanding informal sector mean for the labor market and the quality of growth? Is it a route out of poverty or a low-skills trap?"

Drawing on the findings from twelve case studies, this publication sets out examples of successful poverty reduction strategies in Africa, in order to learn from these experiences and to highlight the reasons why they succeeded and ways in which they can be reproduced and enlarged. The publication is organised into three sections: an integrated overview of Uganda's experience over the last decade; issues relating to improving the investment climate with examples from Rwanda, Senegal, Kenya, Botswana, Mauritius and Tanzania; and strategies to tackle social exclusion and deliver services to poor people in Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Uganda, Ghana, South Africa and Zambia.

This paper provides the most complete analysis of the structural transformation among low- and low-middle-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa to date.