Skills Mismatch persists

• Driving economic growth requires the appropriate skills that respond to the demands of employers. Addressing how to close the skills mismatch is not happening at the required pace and quantity. Turn-around times to get youth from learning to earning a decent living wage are further widening.

• Furthermore contracting economies due to the impacts of COVID-19 means no job growth and workplace productivity is impacted, few jobs created and, in many instances, job losses and therefore no new jobs for labour market entrants;

• The downside is an expanding informality in self-employment or temporary work placement resulting in unemployment and underemployment of youth, lack of funding to transform TVET national systems to be responsive to demand-side needs.

Our Assumptions for the ACJ

• Member States, individually and collectively are grappling with how to bring about transformative results in the development and growth of their economies. With the ACJ, we believe that by bringing together all stakeholders that influence the skills and employment agenda into the ‘same room’, through dialogue and drawing from the different perspectives and experiences, we can together shape solutions.

• The ACJ Continental Dialogue is a platform for dialogue with purpose, to provide reflection and learning as key drivers for innovations as well as to develop possible solutions and responsive actions to unlock opportunities for the millions of African Youth.

Dialogue with a Purpose

The ACJ Dialogue is about framing a shared agenda about the systemic changes and policies that will help the Continent to cultivate the skills we need to grow Member State economies. Our collective challenge is to ensure that we harness the opportunities for creating better linkages of industry to skills for development brought about by the push for expanded industralisation, markets and trade as envisioned in the African Union’s Agenda 2063.

Emerging Opportunities 

Pre-COVID 19, Africa’s economies were already facing massive transitions (bludgeoning youth population, automation and the emerging “Fourth Industrial Revolution”). Mobilizing investment to develop relevant skills, create better jobs and improve access for disadvantaged groups has never been more important and urgent in Africa. The AfCFTA serves as a catalyst for new ways of doing business, producing, working and trading within Africa. If done right, this can lead to the creation as well as expanding economic prospects, including better integration into value chains thereby creating an environment for the quantum of jobs, self-employment and enterprise development opportunities for African youth. The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are likely here to stay for a while. Therefore the urgency to ensure that recovery strategies take into account the short to medium term, and critically the long term perspective of having in place a dynamic and responsive skills and employment ecosystem.

Where to start?

• Putting in place comprehensive labour market information systems for a dynamic and responsive labour force is integral to economic  development., including linking sector development strategies to build national labour force capacity along national productive sectors. Addressing the disparities of access to digital capabilities for education and skills for a digital economy, linking skills development for small enterprise development as well as identifying pathways for better integration of the informal sector are some of the issues to be considered.

• Success factor include improving conditions for scaling up public-private partnerships in order to ensure sustainability & responsiveness to  market dynamics.

•  Using a gender responsive lens as well as addressing marginalized groups (disabled; migrants; rural) for an inclusive and comprehensive vision of the future.

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