Youth Employability and the Entrepreneurship : the Role of Digital economy

Abstract

Projections reveal that by the year 2050, the African population will be 1.3 billion with about 15-20 million constitute youth and A Regional Situation Analysis Report on Africa’s youth and prospects for inclusive development by UNECA (2017) also purport that by 2050, the teeming number of young Africans are forecast to form one fourth of the world’s population. It is evident from the afforested that the choices, opportunities and constraints of young people in the youthful continent of Africa will play a crucial role in shaping Africa’s development and although this may supposedly be positive and reaffirming news, it is not without its woes as this projected increase will also lead to a rise in social challenges that youth are currently still faced with – joblessness, struggle to access public resources and quality social services, limited to no involvement in policy formulation and programme design thereby limited to adhoc decision making. This policy brief draws from the interventions and discussions from the virtual conference on “Youth Employability and the Entrepreneurship: Role of digital economy”, held on November 10, 2020. The webinar first set the tone by providing the relevance of the opportunities as well as challenges that African youth currently are faced with regards to this webinar.