Benefits of Green Economy and How Can it Aid Global Unemployment

Green Economy

Unemployment is one of the major problems of every country. This is evident in the continuous growth of population and the number of unemployed youth.

People in the developing world have vulnerable and informal jobs as per International Labour Organization (ILO). This means that they have limited job security, poor working conditions and low salary payment.

National Framework for Sustainable Development (NFSD) would like to ensure and enunciate the Vision of South Africa’s sustainable development. The vision is to outline that Africa can be a self-reliant nation state, maintained democracy and provides the needs of its people through the use of ecological resources.

The question now is, what is green economy?

Green economy is a two interlinked developmental outcome for South African economy. It encompasses economic activity growth; investments and jobs. It is a transition towards cleaner industry with low environmental impact. It also addresses interdependence of economic growth and natural ecosystem.

Green economy can lead into creating green jobs, which means that there would be 60 – million jobs that will be created globally by the year 2050. Green jobs according to the United Nations environment programs are “work in agricultural, research and development and manufacturing which helps in restoring environmental quality”.

How can it aid global unemployment?

Green jobs can aid global unemployment. These are jobs which protects the ecosystem and biodiversity. The objective is to efficiently use water and energy. These jobs also offers sufficient salary, safe working environment, career rights and prospects and job security. One must have the skill, occupational capabilities and educational background. Some of the jobs may include architecture and engineer, auditing, retail, marketing, administration and customer services. While on the other hand, blue collar jobs may include plumbing or electrical wiring. Green jobs also exists in government offices like monitoring, permitting and enforcement.

Everyone will be given fair opportunity to have a decent job with sustainable salary to live a good life.

The main reason as to why the government is gearing up with the green economy and creating the green jobs is first to take into consideration the need to alleviate climate change and to have a sustainable economy.

In South Africa, there are about 300 000 jobs in renewable sector in the next 10 years. And there are about 20,000 jobs to be created in 2 years’ time. There has been a lot of doubts in the transition period. Some thinks that instead of creating new jobs this might lessen the jobs that they have now. While others think that the jobs will be created are not suitable for them. But one must also realize that this global transition of sustainable economy and low carbon can create a lot of jobs not only in Africa but all around the world and maybe an asset of development.

South Africa is one of the top 3 bio diverse countries in the world and the sectors which are expected to be key in green economies are: agriculture, green buildings, water, fisheries, and waste management. The entire plan would really take time, effort, understanding and acceptance of the people to make it succeed.

Humphrey Kariuki Ndegwa has been an advocate of attaining food security in Africa. In his small ways, he helps in disseminating information to the right governing bodies who can help create change and encourages people to go out and share their skills for Africa’s economic growth.