Alliance for African Partnership :: Pathways to Resilience: African Youth and Africa's Transformation

AAP_Diaglogue Series_Email banner.jpg

Pathways to Resilience: African Youth and Africa's Transformation

Virtual Dialogue Event

Wednesday, June 9, 2021

8:00am-9:30am EDT (GMT-04:00)

Co-hosted by:

Media Partner:

Panelists and Moderator

Dr. Chinwe Effiong

Assistant Dean for the Global Youth Advancement Network

Dr. Chinwe Effiong is Assistant Dean for the Global Youth Advancement Network. In this role, she is responsible for providing leadership and leveraging MSU expertise to identify and scale new opportunities for global youth education, entrepreneurship and empowerment initiatives.
Before joining MSU, Dr. Effiong served as CEO of Junior Achievement (JA) in Africa, where she provided strategic direction and oversight for JA operations across sub-Saharan Africa. She worked closely with government, civil society groups and private sector stakeholders to raise awareness and promote support for programs that enabled young people in Africa to improve their livelihoods. Dr. Effiong has made significant contributions to the global mission to create jobs and entrepreneurship opportunities for youth, especially young women, residing in the world’s most marginalized communities.
Dr. Effiong holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Delaware and a B.A. in English and Literary Studies from the University of Calabar, Nigeria. Dr. Effiong is a recognized thought leader in the field of youth education and entrepreneurship.
In addition to her professional work, Dr. Effiong is a creative writer and motivational speaker.

Elizabeth Mwambulukutu

Regional Communications Manager, WaterAid East Africa

Elizabeth Mwambulukutu is a development practitioner currently serving as the Regional Communications Manager for WaterAid in East Africa, determined to accelerate change so that everyone, everywhere has access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene by 2030.
She previously coordinated communications and knowledge management for a USAID-funded agricultural policy project in Tanzania and the Investment Climate Facility for Africa (ICF) which worked to remove barriers to doing business in Africa.
Since 2013, Elizabeth has been blending her passion for storytelling and art as an instrument for shaping community narratives and offering an alternative approach to storytelling. She co-founded Hapo Zamani za Kale and Arts and Culture for Development with the vision to place storytelling, arts and culture at the centre of the development agenda.
Elizabeth is an economics graduate from the University of Sussex, UK, an award-winning and published photographer, a 2019 Mandela Washington Fellow, LéO Africa Institute Fellow of the Young and Emerging Leaders Project, and serves as the Vice Curator for Arusha Global Shapers hub, an initiative of the World Economic Forum.

Zouera Youssoufou

Managing Director & CEO, Aliko Dangote Foundation

Zouera Youssoufou is the Managing Director/CEO of the Aliko Dangote Foundation (ADF), the largest private Foundation in Africa. There she leads the foundation’s efforts to improve the health, nutrition, education and economic empowerment outcomes for the needy, primarily in Nigeria and in Africa.
In addition, she sits on several Boards including SE4All, Private Sector Health Alliance of Nigeria, ONE Global Leadership Circle, Center for the Strategic Studies on Africa, and ABC Health. Currently, Zouera coordinates the Secretariat of CACOVID - the Nigerian Private sector coalition against Covid-19.
Her previous experiences include; World Bank Country Manager for Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Sao Tomé and Principe; working with the European Union on private sector development issues, and management consulting with Deloitte in Ghana.

Dr. Anastacia Mamabolo

Associate Professor, University of Pretoria

Anastacia Mamabolo is an Associate Professor specializing in entrepreneurship at the University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS). She qualified as an Optometrist and after a few years of practising, she completed her MBA at the University of Limpopo, followed by a PhD (business administration with focus on entrepreneurship) at GIBS.
She teaches in the MPhil International Business, MPhil Corporate Strategy and Doctoral Programmes in the areas of entrepreneurship and research design. In addition to teaching responsibilities, she is involved in the GIBS Project Orbit that is about understanding business and management in Africa. As part of the project team, she conducted interviews with more than 100 C-level executives in Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Kenya and Nigeria.
Anastacia is co-leading the AAP youth entrepreneurship ecosystem scoping study in East, West and Southern Africa. She has presented at international conferences and published entrepreneurship articles in peer-reviewed journals. Anastacia also supervises masters and doctoral students.

Background

Africa has the world’s youngest population, with over 60 percent below the age of 25. A projected doubling of the population by mid-century would make the continent home to one in three of the world’s youth (15-24 years) and one in four of young adults (25-34). Young Africans, therefore, will significantly determine Africa’s growth trajectory and its overall impact on the global economy. This large cohort of young people offer a critical opportunity for engagement and economic transformation if their talents and skills are developed and channeled into productive employment. Conversely, chronic and pervasive unemployment and/or underemployment among such a youthful labor force could lead to disillusionment and social unrest.

In this dialogue session, we will hear from African youth as well as researchers and stakeholders in different sectors that support young people to achieve their dreams. We will also discuss the opportunities available with the African Youth Transformation Platform (AYTP), a program established jointly by the AAP and MSU’s Global Youth Advancement Network (GYAN) for youth, researchers, stakeholders from the public, private sector and civil society, and other strategic partners. The goal of the AYTP is, to elevate youth voices, facilitate research and capacity building programs and build bridges needed to advance the lives of African youth. The outcomes of this dialogue will feed into the body of knowledge that AAP has generated through its current youth focused work, while supporting ongoing national and continental conversations on the “youth question” in Africa.

We will close the dialogue with the official launch of the AAP/GYAN African Youth Transformation Platform and encourage stakeholders to reach out to AAP to co-create future programming in the areas of youth resilience, advocacy, civic leadership, workforce development, health and social well-being.