Some 55.6 million young people in sub-Saharan Africa are neither working nor studying, according to the ILO, and African Union delegates at Africa Skills Week in Harare, Zimbabwe, from 12 to 16 October 2026 placed digital and green skills at the centre of their answer. For trainers, the useful question is what those national programmes actually deliver.
Key facts
- The third Africa Skills Week, organised by the African Union Commission and the Government of Zimbabwe, took place at the Harare International Conference Centre under the theme “Skills for Resilient and Competitive African Industries: From Training to Value Creation”.
- The ILO’s Global Employment Trends for Youth 2026, published on 11 August 2026, puts sub-Saharan Africa’s youth NEET rate at 21.6%, or 55.6 million young people not in employment, education or training.
- Ethiopia’s 5 Million Ethiopian Coders initiative passed 5,005,146 enrolments in June 2026, less than two years after its launch on 23 July 2024.
- A June 2026 study by FSD Africa, Shell Foundation and Shortlist estimates 3.8 to 7.9 million green jobs in Africa by 2030, 86% of them informal.
What do the youth labour numbers really say?
The headline unemployment rate looks modest. The ILO puts youth unemployment in sub-Saharan Africa at 8.4% in 2025, well below Northern Africa’s 22.6%. That figure hides informality: the ILO estimates that nearly nine in ten young workers in low and lower-middle income countries are in informal jobs.
Education does not close the gap on its own. In the ILO’s subregional data, unemployment among young people with only basic education stands at 7.5%, against 13.6% for those with secondary education and 15.8% for graduates.
The entry figures vary by source. At Harare, the AU said more than 12 million young people enter the labour market each year while about 3 million are absorbed by the formal economy; African Development Bank figures cited by Capital FM in August 2026 give a range of 10 to 12 million entrants.
Digital skills: big enrolment, thin outcome data
National coding programmes are now the most visible answer.
| Programme | Country | What is public | What is missing |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 Million Ethiopian Coders | Ethiopia | 5,005,146 enrolments in programming, data analysis, Android development and AI fundamentals by 11 June 2026; new target of 7 million by August 2026 | Completion and certification counts |
| One Million Coders Programme | Ghana | 859 trained in the 2025 pilot; certification partners Google, MTN, Huawei and Telecel; one million people targeted over four years | A stable 2026 target and job placement data |
Ghana shows how targets move. In January 2026, Communications Minister Samuel George said the government aimed to train 400,000 people in 2026. In April, at the launch of the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy, President John Dramani Mahama put this year’s figure at 300,000. A five-day trainer course at the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT, which ran from 31 August to 4 September 2026 with Huawei experts, asks each graduate to train at least 20 members of the public.
Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed called the five-million milestone a goal reached “in less than two” years. Enrolment, though, is the easiest number to count.
Green skills: where the jobs will sit
The study by FSD Africa, Shell Foundation and the talent firm Shortlist, released on 16 June 2026 in London and Nairobi, projects 65.9 to 84.5 million green jobs by 2050. The continent holds 60% of the world’s best solar resources but only 2% of the global renewable energy workforce, and less than 1% of climate finance goes to skills. The report says 6.5% of African youth have completed formal vocational training; Capital FM, reporting the same research, gives 5%. Either figure is small.
Kenya offers a small, concrete model. The Green Careers Caravan, run by Jacob’s Ladder Africa with African Development Bank support, tours public universities to show students where green jobs exist. Its first phase, from September 2025 to April 2026, targeted 15 universities, with all 42 public universities planned by 2030. The organisers found that 67% of students were unaware of green job opportunities.
What digital and green skills mean for trainers and HR teams
For TVET colleges and corporate academies that teach digital and green skills, the lesson from Harare is to design backwards from the job. The AU named agro-processing, automotive manufacturing and pharmaceuticals as priority value chains, and the green jobs study expects most of the employment gains to come through service value chains. Short courses that pair a digital tool with one of those sectors are likely to be easier to place than generic coding.
Ask for completion and placement data when you partner with a national programme, and publish your own. Recognise informal experience as well: recognition of prior learning and work-based learning featured in ILO sessions during the week. African ministers meet next at the AU Specialised Technical Committee on Education, Science and Technology in Addis Ababa from 2 to 6 November 2026, where the Harare recommendations are due to feed in. Our earlier coverage of an East African TVET project on skills mobility and of green skills in African universities gives more context.
FAQ
What was Africa Skills Week 2026?
It was the third edition of the African Union’s continental skills conference, held in Harare from 12 to 16 October 2026 after earlier editions in Ghana (2024) and Ethiopia (2025). It was set to close with a communiqué on skills financing, work-based learning and inclusion.
Which digital and green skills are most in demand in Africa?
National programmes focus on programming, data analysis and AI basics, while the FSD Africa study expects green employment to grow mainly through service value chains around energy and climate.
Where can trainers find reliable youth labour data?
The ILO’s Global Employment Trends for Youth report and its ILOSTAT database give regional and country figures.
Sources: African Union; 263Chat; ILO; Ethiopian News Agency; Citi Newsroom; Shell Foundation; Capital FM; African Development Bank.
