FORMER President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Dr Akinwumi Adesina, has urged African countries to move beyond supplying labour to ageing economies and invest in skills, technology and enterprise to make their workforce more competitive globally.
Adesina said Africa’s growing population could become a major economic asset if governments equipped young people with the knowledge and capabilities needed to drive productivity, innovation and industrial development.
He made the call at the inaugural Seyi Tinubu Colloquium, held recently in Lagos, where he delivered an address titled: ‘Africa Next: Building the Demographic Asset Class.
‘Africa, therefore, should not aspire merely to supply labour to an ageing world. We should aspire to supply capability to a changing world,’ he said.
He stated that Africa’s demographic advantage would depend not simply on the number of people available to work, but on the quality of education, skills and employment opportunities available to them.
He said governments should strengthen education and vocational training, align learning with labour-market needs and expand opportunities for workers to acquire skills relevant to emerging industries.
Adesina described education as an investment in national productive capacity, warning that unemployment, underemployment and skills mismatches could undermine the continent’s development prospects.
‘Our young people are not the liability. Wasted potential is the liability,’ he said.
He argued that the failure to translate young people’s potential into productive employment often reflected weaknesses in the systems meant to prepare and support them, including inadequate education, healthcare, infrastructure and access to finance.
The former AfDB president also urged African countries to prepare workers for changes driven by artificial intelligence (AI), insisting that the continent must do more than consume technologies developed elsewhere.
‘We must become a creator, an adapter and a shaper of AI,’ he said.
He called for technologies that respond to African languages, businesses, markets and development needs, alongside investments that enable workers to adapt to changing workplace demands.
Adesina further emphasised the need to connect skills with capital, technology and markets, saying young people require access to finance and business support to turn their ideas into enterprises capable of creating jobs.
He cited the Investment in Digital and Creative Enterprises (i-DICE) programme, which received $178 million in AfDB financing towards its $618 million funding package, as well as the bank’s $100 million commitment to support a Youth Entrepreneurship Investment Bank model.
He said Africa’s ability to develop a competitive workforce would depend on whether its economies could productively deploy the skills young people acquire.
Adesina’s message was that the continent must move beyond providing workers to the global economy and build the capabilities to compete in higher-value activities, create businesses and drive innovation.
He maintained that investing in people would be critical to turning Africa’s demographic growth into economic prosperity.