FUNDAMENTAL STRUCTURAL REFORMS OF AFRICAN ECONOMIES FOR SUSTAINABLE RESILIENCE: A Human Capital Perspective
- Joe U. Umo
- ( paper pages. 259 - 286 )
Abstract
This paper notes that
most African countries are structurally vulnerable and widely exposed to both
internal and external shocks. These vulnerabilities are traceable to human
capital dysfunctions in terms of both suboptimal development and deployment;
thence it follows that the fundamental solutions to vulnerabilities lie in
undertaking some far-reaching reforms of the observed human capital
dysfunctions. The vulnerabilities, graphically illustrated using Nigeria mainly
as test case, include: exponential rates
of population growth, anaemic economic growth, mass unemployment driving mass
poverty, institutional weaknesses, growing deficit in the quality of tertiary
education as exemplified by inability to compete effectively in global
university rankings, governance deficit resulting in massive corruption,
monocultural economic structure with high import dependency, growing
macro-volatility along with socio-economic instability recently generated by
ill-timed withdrawal of petroleum subsidy and floating of the currency, etc.
The proposed ten-point reform towards reducing/eliminating vulnerabilities and
establishing resilience includes:
massive and sustainable funding of
education and health sectors; ensuring merit-based/merit-driven deployment of
human capital in all institutions and economic sectors; ensuring macroeconomic stability by focusing on diversification of the real sector,
especially through promoting maximum employment-led growth driven with
massive investment through promoting transformational entrepreneurs; and
setting up of a shock-detection network (SHODEN) in each country to generate
early warning signals that can facilitate proactive responses to shocks.
Citation
Joe U. Umo.
2023.
"FUNDAMENTAL STRUCTURAL REFORMS OF AFRICAN ECONOMIES FOR SUSTAINABLE RESILIENCE: A Human Capital Perspective"
The Nigerian Journal of Economic and Social Studies,
65 (2): 259 - 286.
JEL Classification
D6, E2, E4, E6, F4, F5, H2, H5
