Publication: Jobs in the Horn of Africa: Synoptic Brief
Loading...
Date
2021-06-21
ISSN
Published
2021-06-21
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
This note provides an overview of labor markets and job outcomes in the Horn of Africa. This background note was prepared for the Horn of Africa Regional Economic Memorandum. It provides an overview of issues related to jobs in the five countries of the region, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia. It first discusses labor market characteristics, notably labor force participation, unemployment and underemployment,as well as demographics of the labor force. Secondly, it compares employment patterns, focusing on the type and sector of employment. Finally, it looks at the limited information available on jobs outcomes – notably, wage levels. It seeks to provides a relatively succinct synoptic summary of the common trends among the five countries as well as some distinct features. With the exception of Eritrea, the World Bank has recently analyzed jobs outcomes in all countries of the region.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Sahr, Tove; Farole, Thomas; Viollaz, Mariana; von der Goltz, Jan. 2021. Jobs in the Horn of Africa: Synoptic Brief. Horn of Africa Regional Economic Memorandum Background Paper;No. 2. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/36457 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Integrating Border Regions : Connectivity and Competitiveness in South Asia(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2014-07)Deeper regional integration can be beneficial especially for regions along international borders. It can open up new markets on opposite sides of borders and give consumers wider access to cheaper goods. This paper uses data from five contiguous districts of India, Nepal, and Bangladesh in the northeast of the subcontinent to measure the degrees of trade complementarity between districts. The paper illustrates that the regions are underexploiting the potential of intraregional commerce. Price wedges of up to 90 percent in some important consumption products along with measures of complementarity between households' production and consumption suggest the potential for relatively large gains from deeper trade integration. Furthermore, an examination of a specific supply chain of tea highlights factors that help industries scale up, aided by institutions such as an organized auction and decent physical and legal infrastructure. However, districts alike in geography but located across international boundaries face different development prospects, suggesting that gains from reduced "thickness of borders" would not accrue automatically. Much rests on developing intrinsic industry competitiveness at home, including the reform of regulatory and business practices and infrastructural bottlenecks that prevent agglomeration of local economies.Publication Factory Southern Africa?(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-01)Once concentrated among a few large economies, global flows of goods, services, and capital now reach an ever-larger number of countries worldwide. Global trade in goods and in services both increased 10 times between 1980 and 2011, while foreign direct investment (FDI) flows increased almost 30-fold. A value chain is global when some of these stages are carried out in more than one country, most notably when discrete tasks within a production process are fragmented and dispersed across a number of countries. Southern African Customs Union (SACU) - region global value chains (GVCs) are both a new reality and significant opportunity for expanding non-commodity exports to support growth, diversification, and job creation in the region. The task-based nature of GVCs creates opportunities for developing countries to establish very quickly a position in global trade within a sector in which they may have had no previous experience. For South Africa, GVCs are seen as a route to higher manufacturing exports and greater value addition. For other SACU countries, GVCs are seen as a route to diversification and global integration, and to leverage the possibility of greater investment from South Africa itself. The main objectives of the study are as follows: (i) to understand trends of GVC participation and competitiveness of South Africa and the wider SACU region, the outcomes from this participation (exports, jobs, and productivity), and the factors that determine competitiveness; (ii) to map the extent of value chain integration across the region and identify barriers to deeper integration; and (iii) to identify policies and actions that will be required to develop a globally competitive, high value-adding factory Southern Africa.Publication Household Enterprises in Sub-Saharan Africa : Why They Matter for Growth, Jobs, and Livelihoods(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-08)Despite 40 percent of households relying on household enterprises (non-farm enterprises operated by a single individual or with the help of family members) as an income source, household enterprises are usually ignored in low-income Sub-Saharan-African development strategies. Yet analysis of eight countries shows that although the fast growing economies generated new private non-farm wage jobs at high rates, household enterprises generated most new jobs outside agriculture. Owing to the small size of the non-farm wage job sector, this trend is expected to continue for the foreseeable future. This analysis of enterprises and their owners shows that although it is a heterogeneous sector within countries, there are many similarities across countries, indicating that cross-country learning is possible. For labor force participants who want to use their skills and energy to create a non-farm income source for themselves and their families, household enterprises offer a good opportunity even if they remain small. The paper finds that given household human capital and location, household enterprise earnings have the same marginal effect on consumption as private wage and salary employment. The authors argue that household enterprises should be seen as part of an integrated job and development strategy.Publication The Internal Geography of Trade : Lagging Regions and Global Markets(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2013-04-08)Economic theory, including endogenous growth, the role of institutions, and, most importantly, the New Economic Geography (NEG), have made significant progress in explaining the emergence of core-periphery patterns behind this divergence. They point to the critical role of agglomeration, which confers benefits to metropolitan cores that have the advantages of large markets, deep labor pools, links to international markets, and clusters of diverse suppliers and institutions. Regions relatively near the metropolitan core are likely to benefit from spillovers and congestion-related dispersion. Regions further outside the core however, are not only less able to take advantage of spillovers, but also more likely to be far removed from key infrastructural, institutional, and interpersonal links to regional and international markets. As a result, they face significant challenges to becoming competitive locations to host economic activity. Thus the geographical pattern of core and peripheral regions is increasingly manifest in an economic pattern of 'leading' and 'lagging' regionsPublication The Role of Work-from-Home in the Gender Asymmetries of COVID-19(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-12)This paper studies factors that could account for the asymmetric impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in Latin America, by exploiting microdata from the World Bank’s high-frequency phone household surveys conducted immediately after the onset of the pandemic. The paper codifies the occupation variables in these surveys, constructs measures of the individual’s potential for work from home, and estimates fixed-effects models of job loss and other labor outcomes. In line with previous studies, the findings show that the impact of the COVID-19 shock was (i) harder for women and (ii) strongly decreasing in the ability to work from home. Importantly, the analysis finds that the mitigating effect of working from home on the severity of the impact was especially relevant for women with children. These effects were larger in countries/periods in which the containment measures implemented by governments against the spread of the disease were more stringent. The paper also provides suggestive evidence on a plausible mechanism underlying the results: women with children were more likely to stay home due to school closures and the traditional intrahousehold distribution of childcare responsibilities, and thus the possibility of working from home was crucial for them to keep their jobs.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Kenya Country Climate and Development Report(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-11-16)The Kenya Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) aims to identify the impact of climate change on Kenya’s economy. Through robust and rigorous analyses that cover climate impact modeling across multiple scenarios and the overall economy, sectoral issues, investment needs and potential sources of financing, the CCDR aims to identify high impact intervention areas that would support climate positive development. Action against climate change is imperative to avoid setting back Kenya’s aspiration of being an upper-middle-income country and reducing poverty in the next decade. In a business-as-usual scenario, inaction under different climate futures could dampen real GDP by 1.25 to 2.4 percent by 2030 and 3.61 to 7.25 percent by 2050 compared to the baseline. Climate impacts Kenya’s human, natural and physical capital and the impacts vary by region. By 2050, no climate action could also result in 1.1 million additional poor compared to the baseline under the pessimistic climate scenario, with communities in the arid and semi-arid areas being most hard-hit. Kenya can also be a key player in the global climate solutions arena if it maintains a low-carbon growth path. Kenya stands out among African and lower-middle-income countries due to its well-diversified and primarily low-carbon energy mix, with about 90 percent of electricity generation coming from renewable resources. Kenya could also generate carbon offsets through large-scale landscape restoration. The CCDR identifies five key action areas that could enable Kenya to meet its growth aspirations in an inclusive and climate-resilient manner. The three multisectoral action areas are: managing water, land, and forest for climate-resilient agriculture and rural economies; delivering people-centered resilience with climate-informed basic services and urbanization; and strengthening Kenya’s competitiveness in international markets through shifts in energy, transport, and digital systems. It is necessary to complement these the three action areas with two crosscutting actions areas - improving integration and coordination of climate action in policy, planning, and investment decision-making across the economy, and developing and operationalizing policy measures for mobilizing climate finance from private and public sector. Implementing these action areas should account for regional differences to climate risk exposure.Publication Remarks at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-10-12)World Bank Group President David Malpass discussed biodiversity and climate change being closely interlinked, with terrestrial and marine ecosystems serving as critically important carbon sinks. At the same time climate change acts as a direct driver of biodiversity and ecosystem services loss. The World Bank has financed biodiversity conservation around the world, including over 116 million hectares of Marine and Coastal Protected Areas, 10 million hectares of Terrestrial Protected Areas, and over 300 protected habitats, biological buffer zones and reserves. The COVID pandemic, biodiversity loss, climate change are all reminders of how connected we are. The recovery from this pandemic is an opportunity to put in place more effective policies, institutions, and resources to address biodiversity loss.Publication South Asia Development Update, April 2024: Jobs for Resilience(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-04-02)South Asia is expected to continue to be the fastest-growing emerging market and developing economy (EMDE) region over the next two years. This is largely thanks to robust growth in India, but growth is also expected to pick up in most other South Asian economies. However, growth in the near-term is more reliant on the public sector than elsewhere, whereas private investment, in particular, continues to be weak. Efforts to rein in elevated debt, borrowing costs, and fiscal deficits may eventually weigh on growth and limit governments' ability to respond to increasingly frequent climate shocks. Yet, the provision of public goods is among the most effective strategies for climate adaptation. This is especially the case for households and farms, which tend to rely on shifting their efforts to non-agricultural jobs. These strategies are less effective forms of climate adaptation, in part because opportunities to move out of agriculture are limited by the region’s below-average employment ratios in the non-agricultural sector and for women. Because employment growth is falling short of working-age population growth, the region fails to fully capitalize on its demographic dividend. Vibrant, competitive firms are key to unlocking the demographic dividend, robust private investment, and workers’ ability to move out of agriculture. A range of policies could spur firm growth, including improved business climates and institutions, the removal of financial sector restrictions, and greater openness to trade and capital flows.Publication Media and Messages for Nutrition and Health(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-06)The Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) has experienced rapid and significant economic growth over the past decade. However, poor nutritional outcomes remain a concern. Rates of childhood undernutrition are particularly high in remote, rural, and upland areas. Media have the potential to play an important role in shaping health and nutrition–related behaviors and practices as well as in promoting sociocultural and economic development that might contribute to improved nutritional outcomes. This report presents the results of a media audit (MA) that was conducted to inform the development and production of mass media advocacy and communication strategies and materials with a focus on maternal and child health and nutrition that would reach the most people from the poorest communities in northern Lao PDR. Making more people aware of useful information, essential services and products and influencing them to use these effectively is the ultimate goal of mass media campaigns, and the MA measures the potential effectiveness of media efforts to reach this goal. The effectiveness of communication channels to deliver health and nutrition messages to target beneficiaries to ensure maximum reach and uptake can be viewed in terms of preferences, satisfaction, and trust. Overall, the four most accessed media channels for receiving information among communities in the study areas were village announcements, mobile phones, television, and out-of-home (OOH) media. Of the accessed media channels, the top three most preferred channels were village announcements (40 percent), television (26 percent), and mobile phones (19 percent). In terms of trust, village announcements were the most trusted source of information (64 percent), followed by mobile phones (14 percent) and television (11 percent). Hence of all the media channels, village announcements are the most preferred, have the most satisfied users, and are the most trusted source of information in study communities from four provinces in Lao PDR with some of the highest burden of childhood undernutrition.Publication Economic Recovery(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-04-06)World Bank Group President David Malpass spoke about the world facing major challenges, including COVID, climate change, rising poverty and inequality and growing fragility and violence in many countries. He highlighted vaccines, working closely with Gavi, WHO, and UNICEF, the World Bank has conducted over one hundred capacity assessments, many even more before vaccines were available. The World Bank Group worked to achieve a debt service suspension initiative and increased transparency in debt contracts at developing countries. The World Bank Group is finalizing a new climate change action plan, which includes a big step up in financing, building on their record climate financing over the past two years. He noted big challenges to bring all together to achieve GRID: green, resilient, and inclusive development. Janet Yellen, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, mentioned focusing on vulnerable people during the pandemic. Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, focused on giving everyone a fair shot during a sustainable recovery. All three commented on the importance of tackling climate change.