Africa’s workforce is young and rapidly expanding, yet the continent continues to face a persistent skills- jobs mismatch that limits productivity and employability. Many young Africans are either unemployed or underemployed because their skills do not align with the demands of evolving labor markets. Education and training systems often lag behind the pace of technological, industrial, and digital transformation. Reforming technical and vocational education and training (TVET), strengthening industry linkages, and ensuring demand-driven, inclusive, and future-oriented curricula are essential to equipping Africa’s youth with the competencies needed for productive and meaningful work. Addressing the skills-job mismatch by identifying effective models for TVET reform, dual training, and demand-driven curricula that equip young Africans for productive work. The Skills Development, Education & Workforce Preparedness Webinar will explore practical models and policy innovations that can bridge the gap between learning and labor market needs. The discussion will focus on reforms that enable effective public–private collaboration, gender-responsive training, digital skills development, and regional cooperation for workforce mobility. It aims to promote inclusive, adaptive, and future-ready education and skills systems that prepare Africa’s youth for the jobs of today and tomorrow. 

Objectives: 

✅To interrogate the skills landscape in Africa, including the skills gap, skills mismatch, and the skills in demand on the continent, and identify effective approaches to closing the skills gap. 

✅To interrogate effective skills development, education, and workforce preparedness models and identify ways to develop and/or strengthen institutional capacities and policies to ensure that skills development, education, and /workforce readiness models foster demand-driven skills that respond to the needs of the 21st-century job market; 

✅To identify measures that countries need to take to leverage Africa’s growing workforce – both in the formal and informal sectors, including by providing them with the skills and education needed to future-proof their careers; 

✅To interrogate the role of emerging technologies in shaping Africa’s workforce and how countries can prepare the labour force to take advantage of emerging opportunities in the technology sector.