The Worldwide Social Problem of Unemployment may be closer to a Solution: Brookings Panel

On Thursday, October 17, 2019 the Brookings Institute held a Panel Discussion on the future of work in Africa.  I already presented in this format my comments on it.  But then I got to thinking...

There's a universal problem of unemployment.  Turn on the news, there's rioting in Lebanon, discontent in Iraq; and of course, the whole continent of  Africa is in chaos because there's no work.
In the US, there's more jobs than has been experienced for generations, but Trump has brought back "again" pollutant factories of coal, etc. to bring about his wonder.  Look at northern India where it seems obvious that pollution of air and water is a vicious killer in the cities plagued by dust and smoke, and you see that turning back to fossil fuels for energy is a no-win move for the planet.

That's what makes the Brookings Panel on the nature of work in Africa so powerful.  In presenting their report findings on Harnessing the Potential of Digital Technologies for All, they allude innovation as a prerequisite need for innovation to occur--upon which job grow is dependent: innovation, that can even be sped up through government and business encouragement, once obstacles to it are cleared.  As was brought up in the subsequent discussion, it's the deployment of patent claims of successful businesses that often can be invoked to prevent further innovation, whenever their enforcement precludes dissemination of some products' methodology and programmatic computer code.  These are essential to make possible using commercial products as platforms for further innovation and development in the field.  Patent enforcement done through the courts, and every product patented should not be infringed upon in the marketplace.  But that ought not mean some commercial product's processes should be kept in secret and not shared with those of the community of researchers and innovators in the field.

Be it noted that venture capital is available for getting innovation into production mode, once vouchsafed through testing, but innovation needs the foundations to guiding the way for subsequent innovation to benefit from.  That is to say, there must be trade dissemination of each successfully  commercial product upon which subsequent innovation to draw in creating its own new applications.

Once innovation is supported then, as this Report has argued, workers employed will no longer be victimized as dregs in unemployment, where they must spend hours killing time in unproductive protests for meaningful work!