Creating More and Better Jobs for African Youth through School-to-Work Transition Programs

This policy brief by the African Center for Economic Transformation examines the challenges of youth unemployment in Africa and evaluates school-to-work transition programs. It highlights a systemic trade-off between the scale and quality of these initiatives, noting that large-scale programs often lack relevant training, while high-quality programs fail to reach a significant portion of the youth population.

• Youth unemployment in Africa is a critical challenge, with the International Labour Organization reporting that as of 2022, approximately 13 million young people are unemployed and 60 million are not in employment, education, or training. Projections indicate that by 2050, Sub-Saharan Africa's population will double, with over 50% under the age of 25.
• Graduates in Africa face significant hurdles entering the workforce; in Ghana, more than one in six tertiary graduates and one in four secondary graduates are unemployed. On average, youth in low- and middle-income countries take up to 17 months to find their first job and up to 53 months to secure permanent employment.
• Ghana has implemented two major transition programs: the Ghana National Service Scheme (GNSS), established in 1973, and the Nation Builders Corps (NABCO), which ran from 2018 to 2022. The GNSS is criticized for payment delays and mismatches between placements and careers, with only 10% of graduates finding permanent employment. NABCO reported that 38,000 of its 100,000 beneficiaries transitioned to permanent work, leaving 62% potentially unemployed after the program ended.
• Evaluations of programs across six YES-PACT countries reveal a trade-off between impact quality and quantity. Large-scale programs often lack the relevant training needed for the job market, while high-quality, inclusive programs like Educate!—which trained 51,300 youths in 2022 across Uganda, Kenya, and Rwanda—lack the capacity to reach millions of young people.
• In Côte D’Ivoire, the Build Your Business initiative (2010-2014) provided entrepreneurial training, but was criticized by the Mastercard Foundation in 2019 for lacking inclusivity because it excluded youth who were not interested in entrepreneurship.

APA

Moors, R. (2023). Creating More and Better Jobs for African Youth through School-to-Work Transition Programs. African Center for Economic Transformation. https://acetforafrica.org/research-and-analysis/insights-ideas/policy-briefs/creating-more-and-better-jobs-for-african-youth-through-school-to-work-transition-programs/

Chicago

Moors, Rik. Creating More and Better Jobs for African Youth through School-to-Work Transition Programs. African Center for Economic Transformation, 2023. https://acetforafrica.org/research-and-analysis/insights-ideas/policy-briefs/creating-more-and-better-jobs-for-african-youth-through-school-to-work-transition-programs/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Moors |first1=Rik |title=Creating More and Better Jobs for African Youth through School-to-Work Transition Programs |publisher=African Center for Economic Transformation |date=21 September 2023 |url=https://acetforafrica.org/research-and-analysis/insights-ideas/policy-briefs/creating-more-and-better-jobs-for-african-youth-through-school-to-work-transition-programs/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{moors2023creating, author = {Moors, Rik}, title = {{Creating More and Better Jobs for African Youth through School-to-Work Transition Programs}}, institution = {African Center for Economic Transformation}, year = {2023}, month = sep, url = {https://acetforafrica.org/research-and-analysis/insights-ideas/policy-briefs/creating-more-and-better-jobs-for-african-youth-through-school-to-work-transition-programs/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }