Daily Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg) June 04, 1999
Ian Clayton

Torres also found that only about 40% of those in formal sector employment are organised. Those without formal sector jobs are "unemployed or struggle to find means of survival in the informal sector of subsistence farming.

"To have a job or not has become a `to be or not to be', in countries with few, or no, safety nets," she says. "At the same time, a large portion of those within the formal sector labour market earn less than poverty wages. Child labour, HIV, labour migration, low skills levels, tenant labour systems and poverty within the labour market pose further political and economic challenges for the SADC countries and for regional integration."

Torres reaches these conclusions in a study called Labour Markets in Southern Africa, which has been published by the Oslo-based Fafo Institute for Applied Social Science.

She says the poverty development trend in Southern Africa has to be reversed and economic growth is without doubt the most powerful weapon in the fight for higher living standards.

"Yet, as important for poverty eradication as well as economic development, although often underestimated, is the distribution of income and wealth. "The benefits of growth for the poor may be eroded if the distribution of income worsens, which might also undermine the incentives for growth-inducing economic reforms."

Southern Africa is challenged by a lack of growth in the formal sector, huge wealth disparities and labour market segmentation reinforcing the social cleavages in society at large. Large majorities are employed in subsistence farming in the rural areas and in informal activities in the urban areas.

However, she warns that the level of existing statistics and updated information about Southern Africa is very poor and this has to be improved to be able to make informed policy decisions.

"Southern Africa needs to exit from the circle of low-paid labour, unemployment/informal/subsistence sector survival strategies and low education and skills levels.

"Lack of education and low skills levels are hereditary; illiterates are thrown into survival strategies, which neither build further skills levels for themselves nor for their children.

"In order to exit from these bad circles, regional strategies are needed, but future regional strategies that are based on informed knowledge about the characteristics, sector and occupational composition, skills levels, and migration patterns of the current labour markets. A regional information and resource centre is long overdue."

Torres says the economic problems of Southern Africa can to some extent be attributed to the fact that the countries in the region have been locked into roles as exporters of either raw materials or crops.

These countries have inherited from colonial times a low-skilled workforce and extremely divided labour markets in which highly paid skills and resources have to be imported from outside. Several of these countries have also inherited, developed or got stuck in "enclave economics", in which they remain fully dependent upon the production and export of raw materials and/or raw crops. Southern Africa became increasingly marginalised in the world economy through the 1970s and 1980s, and the economies of the region became progressively under greater control of and dependent upon the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and their structural adjustment programmes. By the mid-1990s, the region's debt was estimated at between $150-billion and $180-billion - between R9 000-billion and R12 000-billion.

The overall growth rate for the African continent stood at 3,7% in 1995, up from 1,9% in 1994, and during the 1990s, three Southern African countries have exceeded 8%, namely Lesotho, Mauritius and Uganda.

However, poverty rates in sub-Saharan Africa are increasing. Greater poverty as well as Aids and unrest have also contributed to the worsening of human development indicators. Already 44% of Mozambicans, 38% of Malawians and 39% of Angolans do not expect to see the age of 40.

In the SADC countries, excluding Angola, Congo and the Seychelles, the economically active population stands at 50 7272 610 but only 11 104 405 have formal employment.

Agriculture is clearly the most important sector of employment as well as the most important contributor to the gross domestic product, with 70% to 75% of employment in Southern Africa being in agriculture.

Torres also says that since independence, the size and scope of governments in Southern Africa have expanded enormously. The public sector continues to increase and in some countries, such as Botswana, more rapidly than private sector employment.

An urgent priority is to rebuild state effectiveness through an overhaul of public institutions, a reassertion of the rule of law and credible checks on the abuse of state power.

There are also an estimated 16-million children between 10 and 14 working in sub- Saharan Africa. Most countries do not have data on the number of child labourers but sectoral studies indicate that the number is high.

Torres concluded that for many millions of people in Southern Africa, the lessons of unemployment are carried over into daily struggles for survival. "The future of democracy depends upon economic growth and the distribution of income and wealth, which is generated by the labour market. The future of democracy depends upon the degree to which labour market institutions manage to create and enforce legitimacy for the democratic institutions, to moderate economic expectations and to build a co-operative rather than a confrontational approach towards the government," she says.

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