📅 Date: Thursday, 11 June 2026

⏰ Time: 1:30 p.m. - 2:45 p.m. EAT  (EAT)

Africa is a youthful continent. It is projected that by 2030, young Africans are expected to make up 42 percent of the world’s youth and account for 75 percent of the under-35 population in Africa, and by 2050, one in three individuals aged 15-34 globally will be African. The continent’s youth population is growing alongside labor markets that are not generating enough productive and decent economic opportunities. Over the next 10 to 15 years, 1.2 billion young people in developing countries will reach working age, with current projections suggesting that only about 400 million jobs will be created, leaving a gap of nearly 800 million jobs.

As Africa has a significant number of youths not in employment, education, or training (NEET) - approximately 53 million in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2023, the disproportionate number of whom were women according to the ILO, the continent needs to urgently create economic opportunities for its youth. 

High-growth entrepreneurship, which is innovation-driven, has significant potential to promote the development of productive and quality enterprises that create jobs.

The continent’s main challenge is how to close the gap between young people’s ambition and adequate ecosystem support. It is not to create more enterprises but to build better ones: high growth-oriented enterprises that are innovative, have the potential to scale, and create productive and formal jobs. 

The Thematic Session will focus on the “how” – i.e., building better youth-oriented enterprises that are innovative, have the potential to scale, and create productive and formal jobs create jobs in Africa.