Africa’s youthful population offers significant benefits – a large supply of labour, market for goods and services, a source of innovation and transformative change.
Leveraging this demographic dividend however, requires a youth agenda built on job creation, entrepreneurship, education & skills development.
Youth employment schemes and other interventions such as innovation challenges have moved the yardstick forward but a lot remains to be done. Limited education, inadequate access to finance and lack of involvement of the youth in the decision-making process serve as significant barriers. Lack of leadership, political will and youth-generated national strategies and policies are making things worse.
Ongoing education, targeted apprenticeship programmes, strong commitment and advocacy by political champions at the highest level as well as dedicated funding and strong and effective involvement of the youth in decision-making will ensure the realization of the dividends that a youthful population offers. Skills training in critical and emerging sectors such as agriculture, artificial intelligence, fintech, digital technology, data analytics and the Internet of things will be useful. Time is of essence.
