Unemployment in the East and Horn of Africa: A Policy Failure and Human Rights Concern

Human Rights Research Center
4 hours ago
15 min read

April 15, 2026

Job seekers queue to submit applications at County Hall in Nairobi, illustrating the intense competition for limited formal employment opportunities facing young people across the East and Horn of Africa. [Image credit: Nation Media Group]

Introduction

According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), 53 million young people in sub-Saharan Africa were Not in Education, Employment, or Training (NEET) in 2023, making it one of three global regions judged to be off track on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8.6, which aims to reduce the number of young NEETs.^[1] Furthermore, the gender gap in NEETs is significant^[2], with the NEET rate of young women being at 27%, compared to 17% of young men, an estimated gap of 10 percentage points^[3]. This situation is no different in the East and Horn of Africa, where youth unemployment often far exceeds national averages, highlighting that young people are failing to secure inclusive labor opportunities.^[4]

Persistent unemployment is a human rights issue that prevents young people from living a life of dignity, accessing economic opportunities, and participating as active members of society.^[5] Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has a right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work, and to protection against unemployment^[6].

One of the popular narratives in the region is that young people have a poor attitude towards work^[7], which places individual blame on them. Policy makers endorsing this narrative absolve themselves of accountability for solving the unemployment crisis.

Within this context, this article argues that unemployment in the region is largely a policy, governance, and structural issue rather than an individual failure of young job seekers. This article highlights that strategies and interventions to promote youth employment primarily focus on improving education, skills training, and entrepreneurship. Whilst these tools are essential, such an exclusive supply-side focus will not suffice. For real progress to be achieved, leaders in government must complement the existing measures with appropriate demand-side structural and policy reforms that enable the creation of more jobs for young people.^[8]

Unemployment as a Policy Failure

Every year, 10-12 million young people enter the labor force in Africa, but only 3 million new formal sector jobs are created.^[9] Data from the ILO shows that youth unemployment was estimated at 10.77% in East Africa in 2018.^[10] The World Bank estimates that in the next decade, about 1.2 billion young people will enter the workforce in developing countries, but in those same countries, only 400 million jobs are expected to be created, which leaves 800 million young people without a clear path to opportunity.^[11]

Even though governments have endeavored to implement employment policies, the outcomes are yet to be realized. For instance, Uganda just like most countries (e.g., Kenya, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania, Somali, South Sudan, Djibouti) in the region has implemented similar policies including the National Employment policy and strategy in 2024, the Parish Development Model, TVET (Technical Vocational Education and Training) policy 2019 and Act of 2025, and the National Special Grant for people with disabilities, among others. This section highlights some of the existing policy gaps facilitating the afflictions caused by unemployment in the East and Horn of Africa.

Skills Mismatch: The existential imbalances between skills offered by education institutions and skills needed in the world of work are a policy dilemma the region needs to deal with^[12]. Across the region, educational outputs do not align with current labor market needs. Many graduates emerge without the practical, technical, or entrepreneurial skills demanded by both domestic and international employers. For example, in Uganda, 30% of young people who are institutionally qualified cannot find jobs, and the situation is worse for the semi-skilled and unskilled youth^[13].

Jobless Economic Growth: Governments have chronically been diagnosed with a misconception of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a measure of improved quality of life for their people, including access to employment in their economies. While countries like Kenya have experienced strong GDP growth, this growth has not translated equitably into formal job creation^[14]. Even Uganda has had a strong economic performance, averaging real annual GDP growth of 6.2% between 2000 and 2022; however, the country remains a low-income country with an employment-to-population ratio that is also relatively low.^[15]

Unfavorable Regulatory Environment: Young people in the region continue to struggle to establish their businesses. Cumbersome regulatory environments accompanied by excessive taxes stifle their businesses at the startup stage. In addition, limited access to finances creates further barriers, which ultimately hinder job growth^[16]. This is particularly acute in countries such as Djibouti and Somalia, where private sector development faces unique constraints. According to a Uganda National Labor Force survey report, 47% of the unemployed population had been looking for work or trying to start a business for over one year^[17]. The Uganda Public Procurement and Disposal Act of 2024 guidelines reserving 15% of the annual procurement budget for youth, women, and persons with disabilities have great potential to promote entrepreneurship and job creation; however, the existing cumbersome regulatory environment, including corruption and reserving contracts for political elites^[18], is a predictable roadblock to achieving intended outcomes.

Lack of Government Support for Market Linkages: Agriculture remains the primary source of employment for young workers in sub-Saharan Africa, accounting for 60% of employment in 2021, the highest share of all the world’s regions.^[19] Yet governments in the region have continuously underfunded this sector, with few meeting the Malabo declaration of the 10% budgetary allocation to agriculture^[20]. For instance, most Eastern Africans are employed in Agriculture (60%), yet it is also the lowest productivity sector, and the remaining 40% are absorbed among personal services, trade services, manufacturing, government services, mining, construction, transport services, and business services^[21]. This is linked to a critical policy vacuum in the employment intervention programmes, which excessively focus on the labour supply side of youth employment without giving adequate support to the labor demand side, leading to stagnation in job growth. In turn, governments have offered minimal support to labor demand-side policy interventions that can link youth to in-country, regional, and international markets.

Socio-economic and Human Rights Implications

When youth and adult unemployment remain high due to policy gaps, the result is not only economic stagnation but also an erosion of the right to work, recognized under international human rights law^[22]. Chronic unemployment, especially among young people, undermines dignity, economic inclusion, and social participation. Jobs are the surest path to dignity and stability and the most lasting way to end poverty^[23].

In addition, the consequences of the unemployment problem directly include economic misery, disappointment, and frustration, but often go beyond these to anger and civic disengagement, evidenced in social tensions, crimes, and protest movements driven by economic tensions.^[24]Youth unemployment is a major problem for social inclusion in Eastern Africa, posing a major risk for regional instability because of the potential for recruiting the unemployed, vulnerable youth into militant or fundamentalist movements. This is particularly a risk along Kenya’s and Somalia’s^[25] coast, but also along the borders of Djibouti, Sudan, Eritrea, and parts of Ethiopia.^[26]

The popular youth unemployment coping mechanism is international migration^[27], which is partly hindered by cross-border movement challenges, including high visa costs in the region, and a lack of commitment to free movement of persons protocols across most of these countries^[28]. Thus, most youth have opted for opportunities in the Gulf states, for example, in 2022 alone, about 84,966 Ugandans left for the Middle East in search of jobs^[29] with some of the youth being unethically recruited by profit-oriented external labor migration recruitment agencies, exposing most of them to exploitation, trafficking, and abuse^[30]. The United States Department of Labor report on Ugandan Labor migrants in Middle East highlighted that 86% of these workers experienced exploitation and abuse in their most recent job in the past five years including abusive overtime, limited freedom to quit, and inability to refuse hazardous work, denial of rights or privileges, threats of dismissal, or threats of deportation; withholding of wages or other promised benefits; withholding of valuable documents; and threats of violence or violence.^[31]

Conclusion and Policy Recommendations

Unemployment in the East and Horn of Africa reflects deep policy and structural gaps rather than a personal failure by young people. By reframing unemployment as a human rights issue and adopting integrated policy solutions, leaders can foster more inclusive, sustainable labor markets and unlock the potential of the region’s young population. Action is urgently needed to expand decent work opportunities for the rapidly growing youth populations of Africa.^[32] Policies and programmes must be based on a clear understanding of the challenges young people face as they embark upon the education-to-work transition. That means gathering more and better evidence on young people’s situation and the available policy measures to support the transition.^[33]

This article proposes the following practical policy recommendations to help policymakers adopt a more effective labor market framework, work toward creating more paid jobs, raise the returns to self-employment, and carefully consider skills development and labor market realities.

Align Education with Market Needs: Governments should partner with the private sector to co-design curricula responsive to local and global job markets. Efforts must be scaled up to expand vocational and technical training. For instance, the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Africa Catalyst programme had a workstream focused on improving tertiary engineering education to be more relevant to the labour market needs for graduates. Another example is Strengthening the Public-Private Partnership Model in the South Sudan TVET Ecosystem by UNESCO which actively bridges the gap between vocational training and labor market demands by engaging private sector stakeholders in curriculum development.
Support Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and Entrepreneurship: Governments should create an enabling environment for SMEs to thrive by attracting public, private, and foreign investors, as well as non-state actors, to provide blended finance, ensuring SMEs and entrepreneurs have access to both financial and non-financial support throughout their enterprise life cycle. There is an urgent need for governments to streamline regulations, remove bureaucratic barriers, and cut unnecessary red tape to create predictable business environments to catalyze entrepreneurship and ultimately demand for labor. For example, the AfDB’s Africa SME Programme provideslong-term financing and technical assistance to African financial institutions to boost SME access to credit. Another example is the Kenya Credit Guarantee Scheme which provides public-backed guarantees for loans to encourage lenders to fund MSMEs without collateral.
Promote Economic Diversification: Target investment in labor-intensive sectors, for example, in agri-business, renewable energy, creative industries, and tourism. In addition, policymakers should consider adopting differentiated manufacturing and services, focusing on value-added expansion in manufacturing and employment share expansion in services, as well as capitalizing on the regional market under common market protocols. Furthermore, the East and Horn of Africa countries could become major exporters of carbon credits, wherecapital raised from the credits could be invested in renewable or clean technologies to fuel economic growth and expand employment opportunities for their growing young population. An example of economic diversification programme is the flagship program Women’s Empowerment through Climate Resilient Agriculture Value Chains to improve African women’s participation in green jobs in the agricultural sector. The programme combines programmatic action, policy advocacy and reforms to address the structural barriers limiting women’s participation in agriculture value chains such as improving women’s access to land, finance, skills and technology for climate resilience as well as women’s access to markets.
Investment in infrastructure for structural transformation: Governments should consider investing in longer-term infrastructure projects that support both manufacturing and services, as well as further facilitate the development of intra-African value chains by focusing on cross-border infrastructure. This includes easing border crossings to make it easier for individuals to travel across borders to patronize services in neighboring countries and increase demand for the service sector. In addition, governments should aim to increase access to electricity, improve transport networks, and invest in digital public infrastructures and emerging technologies to facilitate trade and business. For example, the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa by AfDB and African Union focusing on integrating transport, energy, and digital infrastructure to foster intra-African value chains and boost manufacturing.
Access to Foreign Markets: Governments should advocate for policies that ensure greater access to global markets and value chains, including for the services sector. For example, the IDH Sustainable Trade’s Value Chain Development / Grown Sustainably in Africa partnership which creates inclusive business models, provides technical assistance in meeting international standards, access to global markets and value chains thus bridging the gap between SMEs and international buyers.
Enhance Social Protection and Labor Policies: Expand job placement services and labor intermediation programs. And strengthen unemployment and social insurance frameworks. For example, the Presidential Employment Stimulus Programme in South Africa which has created nearly two million jobs through public employment initiatives. Another example is the Kenya Youth Empowerment Project which focuses on labor intermediation through private sector internships.
Foster Inclusive Policies: Remove structural barriers for women, persons with disabilities, and marginalized youth. Also include representation of youth voices in policy councils. For example, the Disability Justice Fund which addresses physical, social, and economic barriers faced by women and girls with disabilities.
Mutual Skills recognition: Regional bodies such as the East African Community (EAC), Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), and Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) should harmonize skills recognition across borders, develop regional job matching platforms, and standardize best practices for employment creation. For instance, IGAD’s Regional Education Qualification Framework which aims to harmonize qualifications, skills, and competencies across its member states.
Creating National Employment Councils: The Councils would advocate for the jobs agenda, facilitate analytical policy work, and prioritize among potential policy interventions. For example, the African Policy Dialogues on Productive Employment which fosters a network of researchers, policymakers, and private sector representatives to generate and analyze evidence on “what works” for productive employment, helping to move beyond generic policies.
Data, Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning, and Knowledge Management: Invest in real-time labor market information systems and continuously evaluate employment trends and policy effectiveness. The tracking of projects should be improved to clearly document beneficiaries as well as lessons learnt for better future youth employment programmes. For example, African Youth Employment Clock developed by World Data Lab in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation which provides real time labor market insights. And by monitoring which sectors are growing or stagnating helps policy makers and development partners to evaluate the effectiveness of their job creation strategies.

Glossary

COMESA: Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa aim to achieve sustainable economic and social progress in all Member States through increased co-operation and integration in all fields of development particularly in trade, customs and monetary affairs, transport, communication and information, technology, industry and energy, gender, agriculture, environment and natural resources.
EAC: East African Community member states include Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda. It aims to widen and deepen economic, political, social, and cultural integration to improve the quality of life for the people of East Africa.
Employment Share Expansion: The annual rate of expansion of the share of the aggregate stock of permanent, full-time employment across selected firm characteristics (e.g., small versus large, manufacturing versus services, female-owned versus male-owned, etc.).
Formal Sector Jobs: Jobs in registered, regulated enterprises that adhere to national labour laws, taxation, and social security regulations. These jobs provide secure contracts, employment benefits (such as sick leave or annual leave), and legal protection, unlike informal employment, which lacks such protection.
Free movement of Persons Protocols: These protocols aim to establish a visa-free zone, allowing citizens from regional member states to move freely, reside, and establish businesses within the region. Protocols referred to include the IGAD free movement protocol, and the African Union’s Protocol to the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community Relating to the Free Movement of Persons, Right of Residence and Right of Establishment.
Gross Domestic Product (GDP): The monetary value of final goods and services (those that are bought by the final user), which are produced in a country in a given period, usually a year or a quarter.
Gulf states: Member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council, including Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
IGAD: The Intergovernmental Authority on Development aims to promote regional cooperation and integration to add value to Member States’ efforts in achieving peace, security, and prosperity.
ILO: International Labour Organization is a United Nations agency devoted to promoting social justice and internationally recognized human and labour rights, pursuing its founding mission that social justice is essential to universal and lasting peace.
Labor force/Workforce: The sum of employed and unemployed people.
Labour Intermediation Programmes: Programmes used to improve the connection between the job seeker and the job. Such programmes aim not only to help job seekers more quickly find new jobs, but also to make a better-quality match by getting the workers into a role that suits them.
Labour Market Information System: Labour market information (LMI) provides an essential basis for employment and labour policies, and informs the design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of policies that are better focused and targeted. The identification of labour market issues in both developed and developing economies critically rests on the availability of data, information, and analysis.
Labour Migration: The movement of people from one country or region to another for better employment prospects.
Malabo declaration: The 2014 Malabo Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) Declaration reinforced African member states commitments of the Maputo declaration of 2003 to allocate at least 10% of public expenditure to agriculture to achieve a 6% annual growth rate in agricultural gross domestic product (GDP). The programme also added more ambitious goals and targets to be achieved by 2025, including eradicating hunger, halving poverty, tripling intra-African agricultural trade, and building resilience.
Middle East: In addition to the Gulf states includes Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Turkey.
NEET: Not in Education, Employment or Training.
Participation rate: The percentage of people in the working-age population who are in the labor force and those actively looking for work.
SDG: Sustainable Development Goals. There are 17 SDGs which are an urgent call for action by all countries in a global partnership at the heart of the 2030 agenda of Sustainable Development which provides a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future. They recognize that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth – all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.
Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs): Enterprises defined by country-specific legislation based on employee count that is less than 250, annual turnover, and asset value. They constitute over 90% of all businesses, providing up to 80% of jobs and contributing to roughly 50% to the GDP of sub-Saharan countries.
Uganda Public Procurement and Disposal Act of 2024: A framework to foster Service Delivery through effective regulation of the Public Procurement and Disposal System in Uganda
Unemployment: People of working age who are not in employment and carry out activities to seek employment during a specified recent period and are currently available to take up employment given a job opportunity.
Unemployment rate: The percentage of people in the labor force who are unemployed.
The National Employment Policy and Strategy in 2024: A policy and strategy that aims to align economic development with employment. The strategy integrates economic, sectoral, and labour market policies by developing an action plan that releases Uganda from the jobless growth trap.
The Parish Development Model: A model aiming to increase Household incomes and improve the quality of life of Ugandans with a specific focus on the total economic transformation of households through getting Ugandans out of the subsistence economy into the money economy within 5 years.
TVET (Technical Vocational Education and Training) policy 2019 and Act of 2025: these frameworks aim to support the creation of necessary employability skills and competencies relevant to the national transformational labour market, as opposed to just the acquisition of educational certificates.
The National Special Grant for people with disabilities: This aims to promote the welfare of people with disabilities through livelihoods and income generation
Value Added Expansion: This involves increasing the value of a product or service by adding features, improving quality, processing raw materials, or enhancing branding, allowing it to be sold at a higher price than its input costs. It focuses on moving beyond raw production to maximize revenue, improve competitiveness, and foster economic growth, particularly in sectors like agriculture.
Value Chains: The full range of interrelated productive activities performed by firms in different geographical locations to bring out a product or a service from conception to complete production and delivery to final consumers.
World Bank: A global development organization that provides loans to member countries around the world to tackle their most pressing development challenges, including education, job creation, and infrastructure, among others.