Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

A group of angry youths attacked and injured more than 10 Chinese nationals at a railway construction site in Kenya in early August, a move that has worried foreign investors operating in the country.

So serious was the attack by more than 200 club- and sword-wielding youths that the victims sought treatment at a local hospital. They accused the Chinese of taking away their jobs, saying they had been demanding a share of the standard gauge railway construction work in the area for far too long.

The attack came barely a month after more than 300 youths demanding jobs protested against a Chinese contractor at the area. However, the police dispersed them after they attempted to block a highway. Unemployment remains one of the key challenges facing youth in Africa.

Statistics show that every year more than 11 million young Africans enter the job market. Out of this, only 10 percent manage to get a job. This has left many youth struggling over limited job opportunities, creating a fertile ground for social unrest.

Having noticed this challenge, a number of African countries have invested in labor-intensive ventures such as agriculture and ICT. This strategy has partially worked. For instance, Kenya's unemployment rate currently stands at 40 percent, up from only 12 percent in 2006.

With the overwhelming pressure to earn a living, the youth have ended up airing their frustrations to even the most innocent of all the people: investors. The Chinese have been the most affected.

The Kenyan incident was just a snapshot of the many forms of suffering these businessmen and investors undergo in different countries in Africa. It is unfortunate that it has been made to appear to unemployed youths that their woes are directly connected to the presence of Chinese people in the continent. The key source of incitement in Kenya has been emanating from politicians, who have failed to come up with strong policies that would strengthen the economy and therefore create more employment opportunities. Even with their low-level education and limited or zero work skills, locals have been made to understand that the Chinese are the ones to blame.

African governments should be worried of this trend. Politicians are not businessmen and they lose nothing if investors get scared. To them, what matters is political survival. By turning the locals against foreigners, they stand a big chance of being re-elected. That is all that matters to them.

Yet there is a heavy cost in scaring away investors through such attacks as the one that happened in Kenya's Rift Valley. A scared investor will put off his desire to put his resources in a risky country. As a result, foreign investment flows decrease, the economy gets bitten and more jobs are lost. In the long run, wages and salaries reduce too.

It is wrong to think that the Chinese are taking away those jobs that would otherwise be done by the locals. The strict laws on immigration and work permits state clearly that locals would be given preference in job opportunities over foreigners unless the required capacity is not available.

But this does not mean that all Chinese firms adhere to these labor and immigration regulations. Like in any society, there are few elements that tend to deviate from normal. Where such occurs, the authorities need to deal with them according to the laws of the land. Indeed, we have read in media reports incidents in which a number of Chinese working in some African countries without proper documentations have been deported back to their country.

All in all, the sad story where Chinese workers were attacked offers a crucial lesson particularly to foreign firms. It is essential to involve the local community in any project that you pursue.

The involvement may occur in the form of corporate social responsibility activities or even just an awareness campaign to inform the community of the important details of the project being pursued. The more information that is shared with the locals, the lower the degree of hostility between the parties involved.

Where needed, Chinese firms can also train the locals so as to expand their technical know-how. Such a path can help more local people get employed in Chinese firms, and thus ultimately water down any bad blood that could come up. But most importantly, the local authorities have the responsibility to protect Chinese investors. Where there are threats, timely information needs to be shared so as to prevent attacks.

The author is a journalist on African issues based in Nairobi, Kenya. mkapchanga@gmail.com