Malabo — KEY MESSAGES FOR ACBF
• Throughout its 20-year history, ACBF has built formidable partnerships with African governments, higher education institutions, civil society and other in-country and sub-regional development stakeholders.
• The Foundation now has unparalleled African coverage and growing African ownership and visibility, as well as strong competencies in capacity development that derive from burgeoning lessons learnt and best practices that come with the Foundation's staying power in capacity development since its formation.
• With over 40% of the population below 15 years, Africa is by far the continent with the largest global youthful population. 60% of Africa's population is below 24 years. If managed well, this demographic represents Africa's best development asset over the coming decades. In order for this to happen, it is important to better understand Africa's youth, in order to design and implement the right policies aimed at unlocking the creativity and innovativeness of this group.
• Youth unemployment or underemployment in Africa can be seen as a manifestation of an inequitable allocation of resources, in a continent where the youth defined as those between the ages of 15 and 24 years of age - account for over 20% of the population. This percentage exceeds 30% when one considers the definition of youth by the African Youth Charter, which sets the range between the ages of 15 and 35 years.
• Youth unemployment or underemployment is a global challenge. This challenge is more acute in Africa, due to the pervasive poverty that many of our countries are still facing. This makes it more difficult to allocate targeted social benefits to the unemployed youth. The problem of youth unemployment is fresh in our minds, since it is largely at the heart of the social instability prevailing in a growing number of African countries.
• Youth unemployment in Africa has worsened over the recent years. The root causes of this deterioration are well known:
* Lack of appropriate sustained economic growth minimum 7% per year
* Growth of the proportion of young people, which has surpassed the overall population growth, thus increasing new entrants into the labor market
* Increasing productivity of higher education institutions that release graduates who are neither equipped with the skills expected of them by the productive sector, nor are they mentally prepared for the labor market
* Lack of adequate policies to create space for the youth to unlock their resourcefulness, inventiveness and ingenuity.
THE ROLE OF CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT
The youth are the future of the African continent. As such, they need to be protected and guidedthrough education and employment. ACBF defines capacity as the aptitudes, resources, relationships, and facilitating conditions required to act effectively in order to achieve specified mandates. Capacity is therefore conceptualized at three levels: individuals, work environment or organization, and institutions (interactions between individuals and organizations). The role of capacity development and employment creation for the youth is to strengthen the enabling environment and enhance governance, in order to unlock the potential of the youth, either for self-employment or for their integration into the productive sectors.
ACBF AND NEPAD
The Foundation, in partnership with the NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency andin line with the Capacity Development Strategic Framework adopted by the Africa Union, stands ready to assist African countries in their employment creation effort. We will do this by:
* Developing skilled individuals through training and continuous learning
* Creating an enabling policy environment and a critical mass of policy makers who shape the job - creating potential of economies
* Creating platforms for dialogue between government, civil society and the private sector that can generate a positive environment for economic growth and job creation
* Supporting learning andknowledge sharing in order to speed up change and uncoverideas that unlock the potential of young people. The new five-year strategy (2012-2016) of the African Capacity Building Foundation, adopted by the Foundation's Board of Governors provides for activities that support the objectives that underlie employment creation for Africa's young people. These interventions include building capacity to:
* Create strong partnerships between higher education institutions and the productive sector;
* Increase the supply of skilled middle level specialized workers;
* Foster creativity, formulating and implementing public policies that unleash innovation; and
*Initiatives to simplify legal frameworks and reform financing mechanisms, in order to foster investment in private sector.
ACBF's partnership with NEPAD will enable our two organizations to better leverage existing resources to maximize our collective impact and achieve formidable results for capacity development in Africa.
The alliance is strategically positioned to develop continental mechanisms on how to better partner and share lessons in order to address the capacity development challenges in Africa.
