OPINION: Tapping into innovation and entrepreneurship to create employment for youth in Africa

In a few decades, there will be about a billion young people in Africa’s job market; the largest in the world. Today, the continent is the youngest and fastest-growing with projections indicating that there will be 375 million young people in Africa’s labour market in the next eight years.

The downside of this growth is that there is a significant gap between the growth in the number of young people seeking jobs and the growth in employment opportunities. This coupled with a mismatch between the skills of young people entering the job market and the needs of employers will result in a huge portion of this population facing challenges in finding formal employment.

Interestingly, not even the economic growth witnessed in many countries over the last 10 years has come with commensurate employment opportunities. The informal sector still provides 85.6% of the employment opportunities currently available on the continent according to data from a 2020 publication by the International Labour Organization. Most of these do not offer decent wages that can enable young people to improve their lives.

To secure a pathway out of poverty for Africa’s youth, it is important to work at finding solutions to the continent’s employment challenges. The current generation of African youth is healthier, more educated and more innovative compared to their parents. Through technology, they have easier access to information, and consumer goods and services.

It is therefore important for the continent to tap into these positive attributes to create more employment opportunities for them and reduce poverty. This can be achieved through improving education and vocational training, finding new ways to connect people with opportunities, and increasing financial inclusion.

This includes supporting young women who are often excluded from business investment and financial opportunities. Young women also face gender-based barriers in skills development resulting in the need to identify solutions that are necessary for breaking down walls of inequality and empowering the most vulnerable young people to succeed.

With the increased connectivity in the content, including the commenced roll-out of 5G networks, technology can be leveraged to drive impact and scale.  Technology has the power to connect young people to their first job, apprenticeships, and cooperative programs. It also enables faster, more efficient access to capital, talent, and business support for entrepreneurs. It drives growth, inclusion and poverty reduction.

Our youth want to drive change. They want to be more than just beneficiaries of programs; this generation wants to be job creators. They have a vision for a more inclusive future. Over and over, young people have told policymakers to be bold in their goals. Their input is critical in the development of programs, policies, and decisions that affect youth employment.

They believe in the power of innovation and technology. Young people not only want to be equipped with the skills they need to leverage current technology, but they also want to lead in the development of the technology of tomorrow. Supporting them will include bolstering support for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education.

The scale and complexity of Africa’s, youth employment challenge is evidence that no one organization can address it alone. There is a need for increased collaborations between global development agencies, governmental bodies and local organizations that often have on-the-ground knowledge that can be leveraged in seeking solutions to youth employment.

This is the approach taken by Mastercard working with several African organizations and institutions to promote trade and investments through promoting entrepreneurship and self-employment among young people.

In Kenya where they are working with Equity Bank, for instance, they are providing young people with training on entrepreneurship skills, preparing them to access finance to start and grow their businesses. So far, beneficiaries of the program that began in 2019 have created over 1.2 Million jobs and economic opportunities to date and the number is expected to grow to 2 million jobs by the end of the first phase of the initiative in 2024.  Over 80% of these jobs and opportunities are held by youth.

Such collaborations are evidence that there is a need for more cooperation with the formal private sector, as well as increased levels of financial inclusion. There is also a need to derisk our youth to enable them access to credit facilities, especially through digital platforms.

Supporting African institutions to advance change in individual countries will be essential, as will advancing global discussions on youth employment in Africa.