KING CONCERNED ABOUT LIMITED JOBS FOR YOUTH

MBABANE – His Majesty the King has noted a significant gap between the number of young people seeking work and the limited opportunities available to them.

His speech was read to the audience by Prime Minister Cleopas Dlamini during the inauguration of the AeTrade Presidential Advisory Council in Niger. His Majesty said there was a mismatch between the skills of young people entering the workforce and the needs of employers.
The head of State said according to the IMF projections, about 12 million school leavers and graduates enter the job market and nearly three million get jobs every year. Ingwenyama mentioned that it was for this very reason AeTrade Group has developed a digital capacity building for SMEs, youth, and women. He referred to projections by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which stated that the population growth on the continent meant that there would be more young Africans entering the workforce each year than in the rest of the world combined by 2035.

Eradicate

In the past four years, he said Africa has laid the foundation to eradicate extreme poverty in Africa. The King was firm that the large continental organisation was in a better position with a mission to eradicate extreme poverty in Africa in the next decade. The King said Africa has a huge ambition that was not aligned with the reality of the continent. He said the mission was simply to ensure that Africa must close the gap between vision and reality for sustainability. “By 2030, the number of young people in the African labour force will increase to 375 million,” he said. He said the digital capacity building was an ecosystem that would address some of the chronic issues that the youth was facing today in Africa.He further informed the delegates that Eswatini has started to pilot that approach but more remained to be done, especially with the effects of COVID-19.

“We are working with the AeTrade Group to establish a regional hub for research and innovation for entrepreneurs co-located with the Royal Science and Technology Park,” said the King. He said this model was being replicated in all the hosts and all the countries in Africa could access the remote services of the AeTrade Group in four languages through an interconnected digital infrastructure. His Majesty was also quick to inform the delegates that soon there shall be the Kiswahili language on board.

Accessible

He assured that the aim was to cover the five AU languages and some local languages so that the services are accessible to many. “We need this process to be scaled up across the entire continent and we are confident that the AeTrade Group will be a trusted partner on this journey because we have sowed the seed,” said the King. He recalled that the start of the operational phase for the AeTrade Group initiatives started with the launch in July 2020 of the Global Competition for Youth Start-Ups, which was held on the first Africa Integration Day by Mahamadou Issoufou, in his capacity as the Champion of the AfCFTA and himself when they launched the Sokokuu.Africa, a pan African e-commerce marketplace.

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