Skills Initiative For Africa

The high number of youth not in education employment or training, and the estimated 95 million of youth in sub-Saharan Africa who are uneducated, unemployed or engaged in precarious jobs represent a serious challenge for African decision makers and practitioners.

The African Union (AU) adopted a set of strategies addressing the medium and long-term aspirations and needs for a more prosperous Africa, notably, the Agenda 2063, the African Youth Charter (2006), the Continental education strategy for Africa (CESA 2016-2025), the Continental TVET Strategy (2014). A new initiative to boost education, technology and innovation and advance the AU Agenda 2063 was launched with the creation of the Committee of Ten Heads of State and Government (C10) Championing Education, Science and Technology, and its first meeting took place on 2-3/Nov 2018.

The AU-EU Skills for Youth Employability Programme (SYEP) is part of the DCI Pan-African Programme 2018 financed from the general budget of the European Union (EU). SYEP contributes to the existing Skills Initiative for Africa (SIFA) of the African Union / AUDA-NEPAD.

SYEP consists of three components, of which the second is targeted by the present project document. SYEP Action Document calls on a collaborative engagement of the ILO to conceive and implement relevant activities in these elected output of component 2: a) skills anticipation and forecasting, as integral part of labour market information systems (LMIS).SYEP consists of three components, of which the second is targeted by the present project document.

• Capacity development of over 246 labour market and skills development practitioners from 16 African member states, on skills anticipation, measurement of skills mismatch and application of sector-based skill anticipation methodologies.
• Inter-Ministry and Tripartite-plus National Task Teams on strengthening skills anticipation were established in Eswatini, Ghana, Gabon, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, to guide project activities and lead the development of measures for strengthening procedures for anticipating future skill needs.
• Situation analyses of existing skills anticipation systems, practices and institutional and governance arrangements were conducted in Eswatini, Ethiopia Gabon, Ghana, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe where concrete recommendations for strengthening labour market information systems, and its coordination, governance, and dialogue mechanisms were also developed.
• National Action Plans of strengthening skills anticipation systems were developed in Eswatini, Ghana, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe were developed. The Action Plans were officially adopted by national governments in the above Countries through the Ministers of Labour
• In response to the COVID 19 pandemic, the Project used a Guidance Note developed by the SKILLS Unit to conduct rapid assessments of reskilling and upskilling needs arising from the impact of the pandemic on the labour market and to develop recommendations for quick action. The rapids assessments for Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, and Zambia have been published and are available on the ILO publications website. In South Africa, recommendations from the assessment were incorporated into the Country’s overall COVID 19 recovery response. A comparative analysis to establish similarities and differences in the way the pandemic affected the different Countries was also undertake and the report published.
• The highlight of Project interventions was a Continental Conference on skills anticipation at which a communique was issued by members states at the end of the Africa continental Conference on Skills Anticipation and Matching held in September 2021, which called on Ministers of Labour and Ministers of Education to leverage their political and convening powers to raise awareness on the important role that skills anticipation plays in aligning skills development to labour market competency needs and towards minimizing the skills mismatch.
• The Africa Union through its Department of Education, Science, Technology, and Innovation presented the call for action to the Specialized Technical Committee of Ministers of Education, the recommendations on Skills Anticipation were included in the Official Report of the Continental Education Strategy for Africa – TVET Cluster.

• The Project supported introduction of the ILO sector-based skills anticipation methodology STED (Skills for Trade and Economic Diversification) and guided its practical application in Eswatini in the Horticulture sector, in Ghana’s Garments and Textile Sector, in Tanzania’s Beef Sector and in Zimbabwe’s Horticulture Sector. For the above-mentioned Countries, the STED Research resulted in the development of Sector Skills Strategies in the researched sectors.

  More information about STED.

• In addition, the Project support review of government regulatory frameworks and policies to ensure proper country level regulatory guidance on skills anticipation and matching. In Eswatini the Project supported the review of the Industrial and Vocational Training Act and the Human Resource Development Policy. While in Zimbabwe the Project supported the development of the TVET Policy (recently adopted).