📅 Date: Thursday, 11 June 2026

⏰ Time: 16:15 – 18:15 (EAT)

Integrating youth-led SMEs and startups in Africa into regional value chains (RVCs) presents a strategic pathway to addressing both youth unemployment and economic diversification on the continent. Successful regional integration, powered by the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), can expand market access, stimulate cross-border investment, and generate scalable job creation, particularly in labour-intensive and emerging sectors such as agro-processing, textiles, green manufacturing, and logistics. For example, Zambia’s agro-industrialisation strategy targets 300,000 new jobs by 2030, with at least half for youth (ZDA, 2024). Similarly, the renewable energy sector in Namibia and South Africa is projected to create tens of thousands of jobs, with South Africa’s Green Hydrogen Programme alone expecting to employ 20,000 people by 2030 (DTIC, 2023). The implementation of the AfCFTA Protocol on Women and Youth in trade and the AfCFTA Protocol on Digital Trade can support the harnessing of the AfCFTA to foster youth. 

This session is organized by the ECA Subregional Office for Southern Africa (SRO-SA) in collaboration with the ECA Regional Integration and Trade Division, International Labour Organisation (ILO) & Southern Africa Youth Forum.