Africa already is the youngest continent with more than 60% of its inhabitants under the age of 25. It is facing a jobs crisis and will need to add ~30 million new jobs per year for the next few years to absorb its young and growing workforce. Currently, over 20% of Africa’s youth is unemployed nor in any form of formal training.
Opportunities for the youth
By 2050, Africa will be home to 2.5 billion people, of whom 1 billion will be of working age. That means 25% of the world’s workforce will be African. Failing to create meaningful employment will have detrimental human development outcomes and drive greater instability and migration, yet current economic structures cannot create sufficient opportunities.
Any problem deferred to the future is increasingly detrimental to Africans, specifically to its younger generation. The continent has a huge amount of agency in the future trajectory of climate challenge. With the right investment, we can focus the world’s largest and youngest workforce on solving the world’s biggest problem.