“Africa Talks Jobs” Conference Promotes Youth Entrepreneurship and Skills Development

TechInAfrica – The Africa Talks Jobs conference was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on October 30 to 31, 2018. The conference was attended by over 160 representatives from youth, business, education, investment, policy-making, and civil society within Africa as well as several partners from Europe. They mainly talked about how to prepare youth into the entrepreneurship world and develop their skills.

According to the African Union Commissioner for Human Resources, Science and Technology, H.E. Prof. Sarah Anyang Agbor, in order to promote youth entrepreneurship and uncover job opportunities, there should be “strategic partnerships and collaboration with the private sector.” Above all, those are the main keys to tackle youth growing population and unemployment.

Speaking of promoting youth entrepreneurship and skills development, the stakeholders highlighted several recommendations of policy for the idea, including:

1. The Africa Union and the members should create entrepreneurship ecosystem and institutional and regulatory policies to promote the idea (youth entrepreneurship)
2. Create a paradigm of the role of education in preparing youth for entrepreneurship, thus, make it major. This should be well implemented early, from TVET to higher education.
3. Reinforce collaboration between education providers and the private sector by creating national and regional incubation hubs as well as entrepreneurship centers.
4. In order to meet the need for educated youth, there should be TVET Policy Framework created.
5. Provide more reliable, accurate, and relevant Labor Market Information (LMI) for job matching and decision making
6. Let the youth take part more in the dialog and formulation of career orientation development and employment.

The policy recommendations made by the stakeholders then delivered to H.E. Prof. Sarah Anyang Agbar to further follow up them. These policy recommendations will be considered to put them into action by the Africa Union as the part of “Africa Creates Jobs” platform.

Speaking of the conference, it was organized by the AUC and supported by the European Union (EU) and the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) via the Pan African University Program (PAU), the Skills Initiative for Africa (SIFA) and the Continental Africa Agriculture Programme (CAADP).

“The BMZ is delighted to be able to support the African Union in promoting its convening power through the Africa Talks Jobs conference and is looking forward to continuing its friendship as well as partnership with the AUC, Business Africa, and NEPAD,” said the BMZ Country Desk Officer, Anja Pauls while addressing the opening discussion at the conference.