A $972m regional initiative supported by the International Development Association aims to equip 18 million young people in eastern and southern Africa with improved education and employment skills by 2034, as governments confront mounting pressure from one of the world’s fastest growing youth populations.
The programme, known as Skills for Economic Transformation and Jobs Program, seeks to expand job opportunities by aligning training with sectors showing strong growth while also backing reforms intended to make economies more attractive to private investors.
Across the region, about eight million young people enter the labour market each year, yet fewer than one million obtain waged employment. Roughly 6.5 million are not in education or work and about 3.6 million of them are women. Informal jobs remain common and are often poorly paid, raising concern among policymakers that the gap between jobseekers and available opportunities will widen without major intervention.
The programme will run for eight years and link training to industries such as agribusiness, energy, healthcare, tourism and manufacturing. According to Ndiamé Diop, the lender’s vice-president for eastern and southern Africa, the initiative is intended to connect skills development directly to expanding industries while helping young people secure stable employment and contribute to economic growth.
Investment projects are planned in Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe, Tanzania and Zambia. Regional coordination will be overseen by the Inter-University Council for East Africa, which is expected to strengthen collaboration in higher education, technical training, research and innovation.
Its acting executive secretary, Idris Rai, said the initiative would help position universities and training institutions as engines for employment and shared prosperity by aligning teaching more closely with industry needs.
In addition to training, the programme will support reforms focused on infrastructure, productivity and business climate improvements, recognising that skills development alone cannot deliver jobs without wider economic change. It will also create a regional knowledge exchange platform for participating countries to share policy lessons and scale successful approaches.
Advisory support is expected from both the development association and the International Finance Corporation, with the project designed to attract further public and private financing over time.
With the region’s youth population projected to rise sharply in the coming decades, officials increasingly view employment creation as central to stability and long term growth. The initiative’s architects say connecting training to real economic demand could help reshape prospects for millions while supporting broader structural transformation.
