World Bank blasts Nigeria, African leaders on youth development

The President of the World Bank Group, Dr. Jim Yong Kim, at the 2018 IMF/World Bank Spring meetings opening press conference in Washington D.C., chided policy makers in Nigeria and other African countries that they are ill-prepared to compete in the digital technology space; he condemned Africa’s low level of investment in human capital.

The World Bank Group President had articulated that investment in human capital would assist Nigeria and other countries in the region to drive growth.

The World Bank chief further decried the rising level of public debt in the region.

“We are extremely concerned that many African countries are not prepared to compete in what is increasingly becoming a digitalised economy.

“We also see evidence that many of the low-skilled jobs will be taken over by technology and there is also tremendous hope for technology in many African countries.

“We just have to find new ways of driving economic growth. There is no getting away from the need to invest much more effectively in health and education,” he had said.

Kim had emphasized that there was need to adequately prepare youths on the continent to be able to compete favourably with their peers from other continents in the future.

 “Human capital is a huge issue. If we look at all the difficulties in terms of increasing resources for targeted infrastructure like roads and energy, we also need to look at increasing investments in human capital,” he declared.