Africa Industrialisation Day: What It Really Means for Young Workers

With this week commemorating the 36th Africa Industrialisation Day, it is time for the world to wake up to the investment and innovation that young Africans need to thrive. While traditional aid has been effective in educating and providing young Africans with essential skills, investing in job-creation for Africa’s young people will undoubtedly unlock the opportunities for the continent to upgrade its economic future.

A more African world

It is undeniable that Africa’s young population is booming! With a third of the world’s population coming from Africa by 2050, now is the time to lay the foundations for investing in the up and coming African workforce. Education and upskilling will be paramount over the next few years to ensure African economies can hold on to their young workers. 

However, we must not forget the structural barriers that affect the rate of entry into or sustaining a role within the labour market for young Africans. With 600 million Africans still without access to electricity, the barriers to formal employment are significant. 

Furthermore the political barriers are also consequential to the lack of long-term employment of Africa’s youth. Partnerships with East Asian countries often result in job creation, but at lower wage levels, whilst expats are parachuted into the high-level roles that Africans aspire to.

The young African workforce

In the coming years industrialisation and job creation will be essential to unlocking Africa’s growth. Staggering figures show that 1.2 billion people in the Global South will be of working age over the next decade, yet only 420 million jobs are forecasted to be created. Furthermore, by 2035, Africa will be home to the largest workforce in the world but does it have the industry to keep up with it?

Unfortunately, the answer is no - the World Bank has warned of a lost decade if the continent does not find a way to support the 33,000 Africans entering the job market daily. Across sub-Saharan Africa, 73% of workers are operating within the informal economy, such as street vendors, taxi drivers and hairdressers, which offers little to no stability and can be easily impacted by climate change and civil unrest. The lack of job security puts millions of young Africans at risk of an uncertain future and puts UK-African economic relationships into jeopardy.

However, as young Africans are seldom docile on this issue, they are committed to driving their own destiny through the digital economy and tech innovation. Nations such as South Africa, Botswana and Kenya are leveraging the digital landscape and driving innovation in the fintech, e-commerce and cybersecurity sectors for productivity and growth. For example, in Botswana the government has collaborated with private sector partners as well as the United Nations Development Programme to establish the Botswana Digital Innovation Hub, which has been heralded as Africa’s answer to Silicon Valley. Shifting the economic focus away from mineral extraction as its most valuable industry to upscaling, upskilling and digitalisation provides a pathway to a more prosperous future for its young people. Similarly, in Kenya, the Information Communications and Technology Authority has fostered a strategic plan for 2024-2027 which focuses on digital skills development and innovation.

Aid vs investment?

The global community is at a crunch point: Western aid budgets cannot stretch as far as they once did, and the shockwaves from the withdrawal of major donors like USAID have left a clear vacuum in the progress of developing economies. But through constraints appears opportunity; an opportunity to galvanise private sector support through the impactful mechanisms of development finance institutions (DFIs). Development finance institutions such as British International Investment, the World Bank’s IFC, and others have already shown that catalytic investment, paired with strategic risk-taking, can unlock private capital in a way that is untapped by traditional aid. This movement of collaboration between government incentives and private investment is about giving the continent tangible options for optimising its workforce through impactful investments into its future. These institutions do more than fill a funding gap; they create the conditions for millions of dignified jobs. As the world becomes more African, the question is no longer whether we can afford to invest in Africa’s youth; it is whether we can afford not to.