The commissioner for Human Resources, Science & Technology for African Union commission, Prof. Sarah Anyang Agbor on Sunday disclosed that the AUC has developed a scheme which is referred to as #1million by 2021 initiative.
According to her, the move targets direct investments in millions of African youth on four key elements of Employment, Entrepreneurship, Education and Engagement, through leveraging partnership and private sector opportunities. The aim is to reach millions of African youths from across the continent with opportunities and interventions in the key areas to accelerate socioeconomic development on the continent.
In an exclusive interview with CEOAFRICA, Prof. Sarah Anyang Agbor said that the #1million by 2021 initiative was an idea which was conceived by the AUC Chairperson, H.E Dr. Moussa Faki Mahmat due to the love he has for African youth to change the narrative.
Prof. Agbor who stated that the 1 million by 2021 initiative was a means to empower the African youths and give them a bright future added that the initiative builds upon the progress Africa Is making in improving capacities through education and skills development, creating as well as establishing conducive environments for, opportunities in employment and entrepreneurship opportunities young people; and ensuring they are meaningfully engaged in the development agenda of the continent.
She said: “the 1 million by 2021 initiative of the AU is huge. It’s put in 4 E’s, which are: E of Education, E of Entrepreneurship, E of Employment and E of Engagement. We believe that the youth of Africa are our future walking stick and they are the ones that will make up power that we call Africa, so we need to engage them”.
According to her, 12 pathways have been identified as drivers for the 4E’s that will facilitate the expansion of opportunities in youth development: models for teacher development, mobilizing and catalysing capital growth for youth led start-ups; nurture start-ups; skills transfer hubs; internships and apprenticeships; digital skills; job centers; leadership programs and exchange programmes.
“For the E of engagement, since last year we’ve been having Modern African Union Stimulation where we bring youth from African to stimulate Permanent Representative Council (PRC) of African Union, they will be representing the 55 member states, we call them ambassadors. Among them we have Head of state, ministers, ambassadors, commissioners, chairpersons and deputy chairperson. They have done the E of engagement last week; they will start another this week and next week another E till all the E’s is covered”.
The erudite professor further elaborated on what the commission have done for the youth, “you know the worst thing we are facing in Africa is a situation whereby Employee request for working experience from young graduates, if we have to depend on working experience each time, where do we expect young graduates to have working experience? That is why the head of state came up with the African Union youth volunteer corps which is like Nigeria NYSC, where we bring in youth from the 55 members in African and train them for 2 weeks, then post them to different parts of Africa outside their original nation that they come from.”
She stated that in order to make the initiative a continuous process, the chairperson created a commitment day on the fourth day of the program which garnered the commission over 19 commitments from huge organisation though had since been increased to over 30 commitments.
“In line with the vision of the A.U chairperson UNESCO pledged to post 200 youths in their 55 offices all over Africa; Nigeria who just joined the vision Minister of sports promised to train 200,000 youths in digital skills, the international centre for the training of women and girls are doing things directly in the rural areas while in Cameroon, the Ministry of foreign affairs just did a program and it is called Digital skills and entrepreneurship where they have already trained people” she added.
