The UN Economic Commission for Africa says the continent’s predominantly young population can find a way out of joblessness if investment is channelled more effectively.

This week, Claver Gatete, Executive Secretary of the agency, noted that as global capital becomes increasingly selective and concentrated, investors are seeking scale, security, and access to future markets. Africa, he argued, must provide these conditions to attract investment and tackle unemployment in the long run.

Speaking at the Ninth Africa Business Forum in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on Thursday, Mr Gatete said: “The question is not whether capital exists. The real question is where the next engines of global growth will emerge. The paradox, therefore, is not a lack of capital, but a lack of mechanisms connecting capital to bankable projects.”He stressed that although Africa faces infrastructure financing gaps and loses billions annually to illicit financial flows, the continent is not short of capital.

He cited the African Continental Free Trade Area as a milestone in creating a single market of more than 1.5 billion people, alongside the expansion of digital platforms and start up ecosystems.

However, the Uneca warned that the pace of transformation remains below potential due to infrastructure gaps and weak project preparation frameworks.

The forum, held under the theme Financing the Future of Africa: Jobs and Innovation for Sustainable Transformation, examined the plight of millions of young Africans entering the labour market each year amid limited formal employment opportunities. A recent report showed that informal work is increasingly the default option for many educated youth, particularly in East Africa.“If they find productive employment, Africa will become the growth frontier of the century. If they do not, instability becomes globalised,” Mr Gatete cautioned.

At last month’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Africa’s youthful population was described as a major source of optimism. Experts emphasised that realising this potential will require investment in education, infrastructure, and industry.

The ECA estimates that Africa’s youth population—the largest in the world—will double to more than 830 million by 2050, representing a vast economic opportunity.

Yet 90 percent of employed young Africans work in the informal sector, with over 100 million living in poverty. While 10–12 million youth join the workforce annually, only about 3 million formal jobs are created.

By 2030, 40 percent of the world’s young people will be African. By 2050, Africa will account for 85 percent of the expected increase in the global working age population (aged 15–64), with its own population nearly doubling to 1.56 billion.

As these young people enter the workforce and build businesses, African countries must create the right conditions for them to thrive.“We have to imagine a future that is sustainable,” said Julius Maada Bio, President of Sierra Leone, during a panel discussion on Africa’s role in the global economy. “We have a population that is very young and we have to make sure we can sustain the growth path on which we have embarked. That means we must invest increasingly in developing that population.”A sharp decline in overseas development finance over the past two years threatens to disrupt African economies. Yet the withdrawal of aid from organisations such as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) could also stimulate structural change.

According to Wamkele Mene, Secretary General of the AfCFTA Secretariat, reduced development assistance should encourage African governments to engage more deeply with the private sector.

Although the immediate effects are destabilising, Mene argued that sustained collaboration between governments, development finance institutions, and private investors could unlock more stable and diverse sources of capital in the long term.

Still, private investment will remain constrained unless structural fragmentation is addressed. Africa’s patchwork of currencies, underdeveloped industrial bases, and high infrastructure, transport, and logistics costs create significant barriers to cross border commerce.

Despite its size—1.4 billion people and a combined GDP of $3.4 trillion in consumer and business spending—the continent risks remaining one of “potential” rather than performance without deeper economic integration.

Mene reframed the aid shortfall not merely as a fiscal crisis, but as an opportunity to accelerate market unification and private sector led growth.

According to the Mastercard Foundation’s Africa Youth Employment Outlook 2026 report, youth employment in Africa is concentrated in agriculture (47 percent) and the informal sector (90 percent). Of those employed, 34 percent live in households below the international poverty line of $2.15 a day (2017 PPP).

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