Lionel Zinsou: An inside view on African politics

Lionel Zinsou, educated at the London School of Economics, French-Beninese economist and the Prime Minister of Benin from 2015 to 2016, was one of the guests at Warwick Economics Summit 2017.

In his speech, Mr Zinsou primarily approached the topic of public policy of government in Africa. In his opinion, not surprisingly, governmental work should be improved and politicians have to try harder to implement policies, which would be of more benefit to the African society.

The more you will be qualified, the higher the probability to be unemployed

The former Prime Minister raised general concern about two issues: poverty and the labour market in his country. According to Mr Zinsou, even though “the poverty is falling down […], more people are excluded from the improvement.” This results from the fact that the population in Africa is constantly growing while not providing the proper labour market for its citizens.

“Your probability of getting a job is reversely correlated to your level of education – the more you will be qualified, the higher the probability to be unemployed”, explains Mr Zinsou.

However, through talking about bright sides of the contemporary African society for the last 10 minutes of his speech, the former Prime Minister of Benin tried to leave the audience at the University of Warwick in a better mood. Unfortunately, finding a smile on students’ faces was in advance doomed to failure.