The Regional Africa Creates Jobs dialogue full reports including the SIFA conducted Macro-Economic Studies carried out in five countries and the Rapid Skills Assessments in eight countries.
The African Union Commission and the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD) held the inaugural “Africa Talks Jobs (ATJ)” in 2017, as a dialogue platform to develop a continental response to youth employment and skills promotion. Amongst the key partners mobilized was Business Africa as the continental body representing private sector employers. To date, through this partnership, efforts are underway to continue to strengthen public and private sector partnerships to improve employment prospects for youth.
In 2019, stakeholders at the Africa Talks Jobs Conference agreed to re-orientate the dialogue towards ‘Africa Creates Jobs’ in the spirit of mobilizing and further strengthening partnerships to transform and scale up skills development delivery and employment creation. As the continent faces the challenges of adjusting to an economic recovery post the Covid-19 pandemic, policy makers are also grappling with how to spur growth through opportunities for expanded industrialization, markets and trade brought about through adoption of the new African Continental Free Trade Agreement.
With these prospects in sight, this year the Africa Creates Jobs dialogue will take place in November 2021, under the theme “Driving a responsive and agile skills and jobs agenda for economic growth for African Youth”, to explore how the envisaged growth could meet the demand for over 20 million jobs that the continent needs per year. As a prelude to the Continental Africa Creates Jobs conference, online workshops were organized in the five African regions to share knowledge and experience among Member States. These workshops brought together key stakeholders from government, the private and public sectors and other social partners to contemplate data and information gathered through a series of studies.
These included the SIFA conducted Macro-Economic Studies carried out in five countries and the Rapid Skills Assessments in eight countries. Further research was carried out by the consulting firm STRATEGIES! on macro-economic studies by the African Development Bank, the World Bank Group, the OECD, etc. Elements from all the studies were compiled into a single presentation for participants that enabled them to obtain a global understanding of the skills and jobs situation on the continent and for their region specifically.
The analysis and discussion on these were geared not only to determine strategies and solutions specific to each region, but also to create a dialogue platform at regional level where diverse stakeholders can continue to engage in dialogue and partnerships to develop skills and create jobs.
R-ACJ Full Reports
