Few socio-economic problems in tropical Africa evoke greater concern than that of providing youth with training in skills and profitable opportunities for work. The increasing number of unemployed young people in towns and cities doesn't make sense, particularly when intensified development is being hoped and planned for. Everyone recognises the urgent need to look into this paradox, to diagnose the problem in its local variations, and to do something about it. Rising population and labour force, the impact of wide-spread primary education, heightened expectation, migration to cities, the low labour absorption of modern and semi-modern establishments, falling productivity in some rural areas—these are some of the elements involved.