Africa Development Impact Forum (Event 4, ADIF 2026)

Abraham Kuku Sam, Data Policy Advisor, Office to the African Union, German Agency for International Cooperation. Policy and Impact Coordinator, Future of Development Program, Oxford Martin School. Also from Oxford Martin School is Camilla Talam, macroeconomist. Director Lisinge, you have the floor. The session will run for 65 minutes. You can do it in less if you want.

We will be most grateful.

Please give them a round of Thank you.

Thank you, Banki. I think you are asking us to be giving a round of applause to keep our session short, but thank you for that. I think usually It's not exciting to have a session in the afternoon, but given the topic, AI and jobs, I think that everybody would be awake, especially as we have the young people in the room. And even all of us, we are wondering what will happen to our jobs because of AI. I think a couple of days ago at home, we were watching TV and there were some young graduates in the house. There was a program on AI and jobs, and they asked me, Uncle, is AI going to wipe out all the jobs we have? I said, it's a bit of a complicated answer. It's not a straightforward answer, but I believe that this session that we are having now would shed some light on this. with that, but also some of the challenges. I will just highlight just 2, 3 things that came out from this, our report, that speak to the topic we're discussing this afternoon, AI and jobs. The first issue I'd like to highlight from that report is that while AI may displace 92 million jobs globally, It is also projected to create a remarkable 107 million jobs, a net gain of 78 million, providing compelling support for AI's impact on job creation. That report also highlights that frontier technologies operate as catalysts for entrepreneurship, innovation, trade expansion, and new forms of employment. So those are opportunities. And we also highlight in that report that job displacement and mismatch risks are most acute during the early transition phases, especially in economies with large informal sectors and limited reskilling systems. And finally, the report highlights that rapid technology diffusion without parallel investment in skills systems can deepen skills mismatch. By contrast, sustained investment in skills development supports job creation as new technologies are absorbed, adapted, and scaled across firms and sectors. So that, in a sense, gives you the answer to the question, would frontier technology, AI, wipe out jobs? But coming back to our session here. We have a very rich panel to shed light on this critical issue. I have with me Jake Kendall. He is the co-founder and partner of DFS Labs, a venture firm that invests in digital commerce startups in Africa. I have Dr. Eric Amel Doumba. telecommunications expert. He led network engineering at AT&T Mobility for 10 years. I have Ms. Mwende Mugambi, is the founder of Mzizi Africa, also known as Mzizi Policy Café. And finally, I have Mr. Abraham Kukusam. He serves as a data Policy Advisor for Data Governance in Africa. He works with GIZ Africa Union. So now you know our panelists, but before we start, I'm going to ask Ms. Camilla Tallam of the Oxford Martin School to take 5 minutes to introduce to set the scene for us.

Thank you very much for laying a very good foundation for my very brief context-setting conversation. I'd like to make 4 main points in the way of setting the stage for our conversation this afternoon. Firstly, We've heard about the jobs challenge, about 15 million young labor market entrants entering the job market every year over the next 20 years, to 2020 to 2050. But in contrast to this is the low job growth in Africa. For every 1 percentage of GDP growth we generate, we create only about 0.04 jobs. This is a tenth of what the global average is. And this is the backdrop— this is against the backdrop of AI transforming economies globally and in Africa. Specifically on our continent, AI could unlock over $100 billion in economic value in over 20 sectors And this could boost GDP by 3% every year. Africa also has the opportunity to lead AI development in frugal AI development and move from just being a consumer to AI technologies developed elsewhere. But this will also have transformative impacts on our job market. In the key sectors likely to be impacted by AI currently, banking, retail trade, FCMG markets, AI could yield $16.7 billion in productivity and AI efficiency gains. And the impact of jobs are wide-ranging. The good thing is that Africa has a low AI exposure. Only about 85% of our economies have a low risk of AI. And this brings us to where we are now. What opportunities can we harness to unlock the value we've discussed? Looking at some of the key areas in terms of the informal sector, how can we tap into technology that SMEs can use to grow and expand and create jobs? What sector-specific job creation impact could we see in the key sectors that drive our growth? Trade, agriculture, industry, services? What skills need to be developed, upgraded for AI, for Africa to be ready to deploy AI in a meaningful way for our jobs? And finally, what does the policy landscape look like? What data governance systems do we have in place? And what role does sovereign AI have in shaping this AI ecosystem? With that, I yield back to Dr. Lessinghe. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Just to give a roadmap of our session, I'm going to ask a couple of questions for each of our panelists. We'll give them 6 minutes each to respond to those questions, and we will have a question and answer session. And then we'll come back to the panelists to wrap up. Now, there are 4 thematics that the panelists are going to speak to. The first one is AI and informal economy. The second is sector-based AI opportunities. The third is youth employment and skills. And finally, the fourth is policy, data governance, and sovereign AI. So, the panelists, I'm going to urge you to, as you respond to your questions, for the thematic that you'll be speaking to, you kindly look at briefly the status in Africa for that thematic, what are the trends that you see emerging, Finally, what are the potential benefits and opportunities? And at the same time, we try to weave in policy issues and solutions, because this is an action-oriented session. So with that said, I'm going to turn to Jake for the first question. Jake, what What evidence, in your view, exists on how AI is already reshaping productivity and income patterns in Africa's informal economy, and what way— or what are the inequalities risk that are most acute? And secondly, what models of AI driven financial inclusion have shown measurable impact in African labor markets, and what conditions determined their success? Please, if you could try to be succinct and respond in 6 minutes. I know that is a lot to chew.

Thank you, first of all, to the organizers for having me here. I'm very honored to be here in front of this audience. It's a very important topic, and I'm excited to discuss it with you all. So first of all, the informal economy is not a side issue on this panel, right? Informal firms make up about 80% of the firms in many African countries, and informal employment through those firms often similar, 80% or more. So this is an incredibly important sector to look at. We have an emerging set of research, and I'm going to speak to you both as an investor but also a researcher. I'm an economist and do a lot of research as well, so I'm going to give you both looks. From the research side, there's an emerging set of studies looking at the impact of AI on jobs, on employment. Unfortunately, almost none of them are looking at it within the right context for this discussion, right? There's a series of randomized control trials, some— many of you might have heard of, where in a whole bunch of different formal employment contexts, they show efficiency gains, productivity gains. They show catch-up from least effective and least productive employees to the most effective. And so paints a pretty bright picture. Also looking at the macro level, there's a number of studies trying to assess You know, potential impact of automation replacing jobs versus augmentation, which would raise productivity as well. Most of those, again, are predicated on a formal employment pattern where there are jobs and there are tasks associated, and AI plays a role in either augmenting or replacing those jobs. Unfortunately, in the informal sector for small businesses, those studies don't tell us very much, right? They paint a pretty rosy picture, But it's pretty hard to know how they're going to translate into informal sector employment and firms. The one study that I know of where they've actually given AI in the form of an AI business advisor to firms in Kenya, all of them small and informal, had no impact on average. Didn't improve things at all. And when the researchers dug in underneath the data to understand what happened under the hood, first what they find is it's really only a small number of the most high-performant firms that were already doing well who use AI to improve, and they grow, I think, about 15% in a few months relative to a control group. On the other hand, the reason there's no impact on average is that a lot of the firms actually did worse because of the AI, and that's a phenomenon we really need to understand. The researchers in that study look at the kinds of questions they were asking and try to understand, you know, what is it that causes these entrepreneurs who use AI and take its advice to actually end up worse off than their counterparts in the control group? And it's hard to say. I think part of it is that those entrepreneurs who weren't doing as well before seem to not be as good at picking out what kind of advice the AI is giving them to follow and what kind to just to set aside. And I think part of why you see such uniform improvement in formal employment is it's a very different, more linear, more structured set of tasks and decisions that are being made in that context, whereas, as we know, small-scale informal entrepreneurs face a whole range of very complex and uncertain tasks and maybe harder to know what advice to follow. longer thread of literature that I find very important here is the study of how economies differ across firm size, right? So, high-income countries, most employment tends to happen through large-scale formal firms. And those large-scale formal firms hire a large number of white-collar employees and are critically dependent on them to manage the complexity that comes with being a large firm, right? Sure. You need procurement managers and HR managers and finance managers and all kinds of people who are delegated specific tasks. Whereas in lower-income countries, developing countries, there's a lack of those white-collar skill sets. And then often you find, you know, most of the firms are small. And there's actually been a recent study looking at sort of the difference. And it turns out that the lack of white-collar skills and employees accounts for about 60% of the difference between lower-income and higher-income countries. So it's an incredibly important bottleneck to economic growth and I think to firm evolution. Now, one thing that you might say is, okay, so that's actually potentially optimistic in terms of how AI can play a role. And AI, you know, who are the people that are afraid of losing their jobs to AI? It's the white-collar workers because AI does really good at those tasks. So maybe that's an opening. I wanted to talk a little bit then about how that might play out, because I don't think it's as simple as just give AI to small firms. When, as an investor, we've, you know, looking back at how giving different kinds of digital tools to small firms has played out, and there's been $5 or $6 or $7 billion worth of capital put behind those kinds of models in the past 10 years or so, one thing we see is that most of them fail. Most of the ones that do succeed tend to be sort of raw infrastructure inputs— payments, credit, you know, mobile connectivity, very simple things that don't imply a white-collar skill set in order to manage them. The ones that imply bookkeeping and more complex supply chain management, things like that, often fail because they're built on the premise that they're helping a, you know, sort of a white-collar skill set. Manage the complexity, and that person often isn't there, I think, within the firm. So just reflecting for me, the notion for me should be, how do we help those firms who can, at the top of the sort of performance spectrum, who can really grow into larger firms? And we'll get into my policy thoughts on that, but I think the critical thing is to think about, you know, how do we give them the things that they they can use to grow and become large and much more performant.

Thank you so much for shedding light on this subject. I think what is coming out is that it depends— the kind of job that is at risk actually depends on the job, white-collar versus blue-collar. What you also highlight is that while there are some studies on the impact, especially for informal sector. We don't have too much studies, and some of the findings could actually be counterintuitive. Instead of improving performance efficiency, studies have seen cases where the performance has actually gone down.

Yes, I should say, I'm actually— just now launching a study in Nigeria looking at smallholder— small firms using AI to sort of launch more digital products and online profiles. And so I'll be sharing that at some point, hopefully later this year once our study's done. But you can follow my LinkedIn or somewhere, something like that. Hopefully should be some pretty interesting results.

No, thank you. It's quite important to base our discussions on and decisions on evidence from robust study. So let me move to the next panelist, Mr. Eric Amel Doumba. I think we are a partner, good partner of ICA, being at the Artificial Intelligence Center in Congo, Republic of Congo, but also advisor to the Minister Minister of ICT. The question to you is, which sector-based AI applications offer the highest potential for structural transformation and job creation in Africa? And secondly, drawing on your experience and observations, what ecosystem conditions have proven most important for scaling AI innovation hubs and centers of excellence across the continent. I think no one is better placed to speak about centers of excellence than you. You have the floor. Merci.

Thank you. Permit me to thank the ECA for inviting our organization to this To this activity, I'd like to answer by saying that there are 4 sectors which present high potential for structural transformation for employment for Africa. The first sector, as we said this morning, is agriculture. It remains the main employer of the continent and all the related chains of linking agriculture with buyers. That's the first element. Secondly, we have health. The artificial intelligence tools enable us to improve diagnosis. Telemedicine is being developed increasingly in Africa thanks to AI. So there's high demand for specialists. for SMEs, then digital transformation for administration, public administration. That's where we're using our country to improve performance of public administration. Here, this is an opportunity, a big opportunity to improve the quality of services, to improve transparency and increase public services. So what I've mentioned is that AI improves productivity as well as structural transformation, and thereby improving African economies. Concerning the second question, our experience in Congo in AI and emerging technology shows that a performing ecosystem is based on complementary basis, we should develop skills massively with engineers, researchers, engineers to establish national strategies in that area. Otherwise, they wouldn't succeed without those skills. Secondly is access to reliable data, which is soaring. This data is the raw material for any innovation in AI. And I think that in Africa, the opportunity that we have is that we do have the data and some countries have taken initiative digitalizing language so that you have sufficient data, which is well structured in our languages. AI should be associated with national languages, which is not the case in many countries. We have taken that initiative. back home to digitalize languages so that people, young people, can use AI vis-à-vis their languages. The third observation concerns the pillar relating to digital infrastructure, data centers, performance, cloud, and ODP networks. Africa is still lagging behind in access to data and unavailable elements of data. As we saw this morning, a young person who was in DRC wanted to make a presentation, but he was facing connection challenges. Then the fourth factor is financial mobilization, which is necessary to develop startups. Research laboratories and projects, uh, must be supported by different governments in the area of technology. If they are not supported financially, then there wouldn't be startups but stand-ups— youth who start and then abandon at the end of the day. So what we see at the continent is that the best results come out when governments, universities, private sectors, international partners work in synergy in a line— in the area of cooperation, sustainable cooperation. By way of conclusion, I would say that AI is the biggest revolution, technological revolution of our generation, and Africa has the greatest opportunity not only in speeding up economic development but building a model based on talent, quality data, innovation, and digital sovereignty. Our responsibility would be to make sure that that revolution is inclusive, responsible, and opportunity-generating. So Africa shouldn't be just a consumer of technology developed elsewhere, but should be a major actor in the designing, development of governance so that the people can be well served and benefit from this for their future. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you so much. I think you ended by highlighting the need for close collaboration between the government, private sector, universities. I think some people call that the triple Helix. But you highlighted 2 dimensions in your answer for the sectors that you see as very useful: agriculture, health, financial services, and e-governance. I think our work at ECA actually confirmed that those are some of the sectors that frankly have a huge potential for AI in Guinea, ECA is working with them to digitalize the health sector. In Mauritius, we just worked with them to come up with a fintech strategy, the same with Botswana as well. So our work here at ECA actually confirmed that these are some of the sectors that are appealing or provide opportunities for take for AI, but you also highlighted some of the foundational issues for successful AI strategies: human capacity, robust data, digital public infrastructure, and research. Well, thank you so much for that. I'm sure that there will be a lot of feedback from the audience. Now I move to the youth. Ms. Mwende Mugambi, how can African youth be better equipped with future-ready skills to participate meaningfully in the AI-driven economy? And secondly, what role do you see entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem playing in addressing youth employment in the context context of AI disruption?

Thank you so much for that question. It is an absolute honor to be identified as a youth, and I'm really hopeful that the points I do give will highlight the place of the youth in Africa and Kenya. So we do agree that the youngest population that we have currently is the youth, with 42% of, you know, the global population being made up of youth by 2030. So that says that there's a huge mismatch between the number of youth we have and the opportunities that we have currently. So we are missing out on the opportunities of ensuring that the youth that we have currently are well equipped and well engaged. But there's been another mismatch. When we think of AI and tech, we think of coding, right? When today, when you think of AI, you think of, you know, you have to sit down, you have to understand understand different tech languages like Java and other big, big languages. But AI is actually moving far more than just coding. There's something called vibe coding that you can just create something within a few minutes using the LLMs that are currently available. So opportunities are there, and there's a lot, a lot of opportunities, especially in, you know, AI and tech. But now we lack the mismatch between access to AI and actually using AI in the correct way. So we have a lot of information. There's been a huge internet penetration. I'd give an example with Kenya. We have over 50% internet penetration, but the mismatch is there's no internet integrity. So you have a good penetration, but you're not using the internet properly. So how can we tap into these existing opportunities for young people? So, So we need to ensure there's a coexistence between the governments and the youth and the universities and other development partners, as our former speaker has highlighted, because the youth do not lack information, they lack access. For me to be here today, I would say it's an absolute miracle that I'm seated down in this panel, because as you can see, the age demographic is there. And so it's very important to notice that access to these doors, access to these opportunities is what is lacking. Skills in Africa are not lacking. We are one of the sharpest brains you'll find in the world, but do we have access? No, we don't have access. So if we have sharp brains and we don't have access, then that means there'll always be a mismatch, and we will always sit down in these spaces to always have conversations about employment, and youth involvement. So for me, how does entrepreneurship come in? First of all, when we create spaces, there's going to be space, right? When we create new AI opportunities, there's going to be space. Our former speaker has highlighted 4 areas: agriculture, health, finance, governance, and so many other areas that we haven't talked about— infrastructure and other different areas. So if young people are going to be put inside these specific areas, then there's going to be a gap whereby we have the existing workforce and the incoming workforce, which is now the youth. So if there's going to be a gap, who is going to fill it? So is it the youth that do not know how to use AI properly, or are they the youth that will be trained properly on how to use AI? So the next thing that we need to do— entrepreneurship will create a space for us to empower young people to ensure that they run with the cycle and ensure that They are part of the process actively. Then the other thing that entrepreneurship will do for us, it will make work very easy, because with entrepreneurship there is income, right? And with income, now we will have young African entrepreneurs and not just young African users. You know, we will have AI entrepreneurs and not just AI users. Because I'll tell you this for sure, in every 5 of young people that you meet, they are really good at using their AI. They know how to prompt cloud correctly. I'm sure if you work with young people in your office, you usually go to them, how can I ask ChatGPT to do this for me? Because they are really, really good at it. So imagine if this person was given resources, an opportunity, and a door to actually do this more properly, then that would mean that we will go away from looking at the statistics of lack of employment to now statistics of opportunities that do not have people to employ. As we speak, AI opens opportunities like AI trainers, models. We have so many opportunities, um, that young people can tap into. So if we can actually open up this door and ensure that more young people are trained, and not only trained, they ensure they're very empowered and that they have, uh, AI integrity, then this is going to be a conversation of the past. We will not be sitting here and saying that we have a huge population of young people who are not employed. And I think this touches into my policy area. I do believe that education in AI needs to start very early. Well, unlike my case, I got to start AI, I think, 4 years ago when I was an adult. So imagine if I had started this a long while ago. I probably would be at MIT or Harvard. You never know. Yeah, you know, I probably would be somewhere else. But it's taken me some time to learn how to use AI properly, to, you know, prompt properly, to build the chatbots that I do. And it's taken time for me to actually garner my experience properly and grow from just building a chatbot for 24 hours to 4 or 5 hours now. So if this had started way earlier, I would have been really, really good at what I do right now. So for me, my urge is, can the member states adopt frameworks for education as early as children start understanding how to use computers? Because only then can we be like China and fight poverty, right? Only then can we have a generation that can create employment at an early age. So, yeah, that would be it for me, Mr. President.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you so much. I think you built a lot from what Eric said in the ecosystem of government, private sector, university, bringing in and empowering the youth. And you also highlight the need to start AI education pretty early. The government should create the framework for that. Now, I will go to the last speaker, of course not the least in the panel, Mr. Abraham Kokousam. The question to you is as follows. The AU, African Union, has developed several frameworks on data governance and digital transformation. From your experience, what key governance gaps still need to be addressed to strengthen data sovereignty and support responsible AI development across Africa? Secondly, The AU data policy framework provides a shared vision for data governance, yet implementation across member states remains uneven. What is driving this gap, and what practical approaches are showing results in closing it? So you have the floor.

Thank you very much. So, just to share a few statistics, and I'll attempt to answer the 2 questions. If we look at the Africa policy landscape at the moment, at the continental level, the African Union Commission has developed the AU Data Policy Framework.

Yes.

Also, the African Union has developed the Continental AI Strategy. At the regional economic community level, I am aware that at least ECOWAS have revised their Supplementary Act on Personal Data Protection to incorporate all provisions to support the implementation of AI in West Africa. Also, the East Africa Community have developed the East Africa Community Data Governance Framework. And this year, I think even last week or so, there was a stakeholder engagement on a regional AI strategy. And then, if you come to the country level, when it comes to AI policies, there are about 22 AI policies in various stages, including draft form, on the continent. And when it comes to data protection authorities, We have at least 43 of them set up on the continent. But there is a challenge, and this brings me to the first question, the gaps. The first gap is an implementation gap. I think that, as Africans, we are focusing on developing the policy frameworks, but we are not implementing them with the same energy. And there is a big problem because the nature of AI is such that things change so fast. And so if you don't implement the policies, they become obsolete. And with AI, things are also dynamic, so you need to implement the policies to be aware even of what will work and what will not work. so that through the learning and experimentation, you can also adapt your policy. So, this is one big gap that we need to address. The second one is an enforcement gap. We have data protection laws on the continent, but usually, you realize that the institutions are weak, they are not well-funded, They lack the capacity and the skills to enforce our data protection laws. The third one is a data gap, and we know AI thrives on data. Our youth want to innovate, and the first place we can probably start from is public data. Governments use taxpayer money to collect data. But they are not willing to put the data out there for it to be used for research, for innovation, in order to create a local African indigenous AI ecosystem. The other challenge is about allowing data to travel across borders. We are developing policies in our countries But we are still not opening up to cross-border data flow. This is where, with the Africa Continental Free Trade Area agreement coming into force, we need to put pressure on our African government to open up so that data can flow freely, but in a secure and safe manner. Then, finally, there is a sovereign gap. only 1% of data centers can be located on the continent. And so it means that most of our data, especially the ones on the cloud, are sitting elsewhere. And this is also not good for us. And these are gaps that we need to close. And when it comes to why implementation is uneven across the continent, I will briefly highlight 6 issues. The first is the digital infrastructure. You realize that if you travel across our countries, the infrastructure is at different levels. You cannot compare some countries on the continent to, say, South Africa. You find a lot of the infrastructure in that part of Africa whilst other countries struggle with even basic connectivity. The second one is on our legal environment. So, AI will not only thrive because you have an AI policy, but AI also requires other auxiliary policies like competition law, intellectual property law, consumer protection law. If you go to our countries, most of our countries do not have this legislation in place. The other one is institutional capacity. We don't have— our institutions don't have the capacity to manage sovereign AI and also protect its citizens from the risk while taking advantage of the benefits of AI.

Thank you.

Then, for me, the biggest challenge is political will. Most of our presidents on big platforms claim that AI will help us leapfrog, but how much of our GDP do we put in AI implementation? It's about time we end the lip service, and if we really believe that AI would help us leapfrog as a continent, then we have to put our money where our heart is. Then it's about financing. AI requires a lot of money to implement. And then finally, we need to build the technical expertise. And because of time, I may have to leave, so Maybe let me give 2 recommendations quickly. If you look at most of the AI policies globally and also on the continent, they address 4 main issues. So I'm not saying beyond this other issues are not addressed, but these issues you will always find in all AI policies in Africa. The issue of lack of quality data, the issue of access to infrastructure and compute, the issue of capacity and skills, and finally, the enabling environment or the regulatory framework. And I am not sure I have seen one AI policy on the continent that specifically address issues around AI and jobs. And so this is one thing we should look at as a continent, to develop an AI and jobs prototype that countries can incorporate into their AI strategies. Luckily, we still have—

Sorry, we are running out of time, please.

Okay. Luckily, we still have a lot of countries that are yet to develop their policies, and so this is good. We need to look at AI and jobs in the light of employment policy, skills policy, industrial policy, and social protection. We need to make sure they speak to each other and they are connected. We need to see how we can protect workers whilst enabling productivity, entrepreneurship, and job creation. Thank you.

Thank you, thank you so much. I know that you have to leave, that's why I I allow you to have a bit more time than the other panelists. But let's open the floor now for questions, comments. Please just raise your plug if you want to speak, and if possible, you could identify the panelist to whom you are directing your question. Yes, I can remember TOR.

Yes.

Yes, uh, uh, thank you very much, uh, Director, and thank you very much, uh, all the panelists.

Uh, I think if we are going to talk about the, uh, this issue to do with the AI, I think we can spend the whole week talking, uh, talking of it.

And my question would be, uh, I think a lot of panelists have talked of AI in terms of infrastructures, in terms of job creation, but my question is, in terms of policies, you know, we have to be very frank to ourselves that we are in a situation where our institutions cannot support what the AI is looking for. Like now, to me, I feel like there has to be a clarity between what kind of job do we think that AI should do and what kind of job should we keep. Thank you. for the humanities or for the sake of, you know, employment and also the rest of issues. So my question would be, don't you think that there has to be policies and also strategies in terms of what kind of industry that we should focus on and also what kind of industry that we should also make sure that people don't lose their job on?

Thank you.

Do we— maybe we'll take a series of questions before we turn to the panelists, please. So yes, I see 2 hands here. Let's start. Okay, my far right, and then we'll come to the gentleman in the middle.

Thanks, thanks for the, um, for your, for your comments and opinions. My question is to all of you. Um, do you think it is possible to completely regularize AI? So you come up with a whole bunch of strategies and things like that on AI policies and, um, how to deal with it, but given the pace that is changing, is it honestly possible to to do that? And the second question is, especially here in Africa, we are trying to police— not police, but to regularize AI, but we are not necessarily the developers of AI. So the mismatch between regularizing things that we are not developing, it's— It's something that's a bit of an enigma for me. So it's a question to all of you.

Yes, you have the floor. If you could also direct your question to—

Okay, my question is for all of the panelists and also including the house. I think when we speak about the AI things, it's one of the things is the advantage and the disadvantage. As a continent, we might have a narrative that will not speak about us, the truth, I mean.

How we—

we need to have a framework or a policy to have a control mechanism of the AI. So, we know the advantage, but also the disadvantage. So, I think we should have as a continent, you know, the control mechanism, so evaluation and monitoring, because if we're given all the things for the AI that is true, we will be, you know, in difficulty as a continent. So, the narrative will— I mean, the continental narrative will be disappeared. So, I think as a continent, So, all the concerned policymakers or the government, all of the concerned policy developers, they should have, you know, how we can make those policies together. So, I think we need to have, you know, a common policy framework or a system that controls the AI as a continent.

Thank you very much.

Okay. I think there were 2— yes, please go ahead.

Thank you so much, and to all the panelists for your insightful presentations.

My name is Jamal Nouh, and the founder and the CEO of RISE Forward Initiative based in Somaliland. As an African youth engaged in development work, I have observed that many young people have faced challenges such as limited tools, training, and mentorship in AI and technology. So my question is specifically to Mawende, and my question is, What strategies do you think are most effective to help the African youth not only consume AI technology but also actively create solutions and innovations using AI? Thank you.

Okay, I think we— okay, I have 2 questions here. Let's start with the Lady, then we go to—

Thank you. I think I— what Jake was saying actually resonated a lot. I think there's a lot that we're ignoring about AI. As he indicated, the people that are doing well are the ones who are most likely to be able to take advantage of AI to continue doing well. If you're not doing well, the odds are AI is not in your favor. I'll give you an example. I run a fintech. We are in the lending space, right? I think we had financials that we had to put together last week. I'll be very honest, I did not use our usual accountant. I figured out the financials by myself with Claude, right? You take your— what is it? Your Zoho Books, right? You plug it into Claude to say, please generate XYZ for me. Jake says he wants to see these particular metrics, do it for me, right? And then you then pay your accountant. Maybe I paid the person— I'll be very honest, guys— a tenth of what I would pay them for them to generate it for me, because I'm now just paying them to rubber stamp what AI has done for me. Same thing with call center agencies, which I think in terms of job creation, we've been seeing quite a boom. I think within the past couple of months, I've been getting a number of missed phone calls from UK numbers, and you can tell this is an AI voice, right? It's not a person on the other line, which then makes me wonder, realistically, from a job creation perspective, should we not be worried? It's not going to create jobs for us realistically. I think it's going to actually subtract. This is even before we start talking about resources. I think the gentleman from GIZ was mentioning that. We're seeing in America there's uproar over data centers and water. We cannot afford to be losing water that we already don't have. Are we truly being realistic about the pros over the cons that AI is going to give to us as a continent based on where we are at this current stage? This is directed to— no, yes, you're sorry, I can't quite see your name, but I think what you're saying as well as to Jake as well.

Yes.

Okay.

I think Jake maybe. Okay, no, let's— we'll take the very last question in the interest of time because we have less than 15 minutes left and we want to give the chance to the panelists to respond. So please, I will give you just 1 minute each for your questions. Please just go directly to your questions. I will take you and— yes, because we need to stop at some stage, otherwise Thank you so much, Mr.

President. I think the question over there is really a storm that is heading in front of us, particularly for Africans, but we cannot escape from the challenge, so we need to create some sort of strategies in order to combat the challenge. But my question for all of panelists would be, what policy frameworks and public-private partnership are needed to ensure that young people are not only users of technologies, rather creators, innovation, and entrepreneurs in AI era? So this is the question, because if you answer this question, I think we will manage the challenges that we are facing currently.

Thank you.

We have to really move on now. We can continue the conversation during the coffee break. that we would have. So let me go to the panelists. We had a number of questions. I will give the floor to all the panelists. You can respond to any of the questions that you would like to, but please don't take more than 2 minutes so that everybody has a chance to respond. And as you do that, if you can just leave us with one critical recommendation that you think would help to address all the challenges that you yourself raised and also the questions that have come from the floor. So you have the floor.

Yes.

Thank you very much. So I want to address the question of what kind of jobs should AI take. Yes, I think that We should look at the conversation this way. How can we use AI to solve our problems? We have huge problem with health on the continent, education, agriculture. Let's start from there. Of course, I agree that some jobs will go. And especially call center jobs, they will go. A lot of clerical entry-level jobs will go. But let's do the difficult jobs. How can we leverage AI for the informal sector? The informal sector is a big chunk of our economy. I think these are the things that we should look at. Because that is why I'll come back to my recommendation that we need an AI and policy— AI and jobs policy that integrates employment policy, social protection, industrial policy, so that we will know which jobs will go, and then we prepare our youth for that, and then we also know where we can create employment. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll move to Jake.

Yeah, so great questions. I'm gonna try to answer your question. I think if anyone tells you they know, they probably don't know. I don't think that's a— you know, I don't think anyone can say they have any certainty on that. I guess it's possible I'm fundamentally optimistic. I do think there's big risks. I think, like I said earlier, I think a lot of the data points to a certain amount of insulation in the African economies since so much of it will be in white-collar jobs where there's disruption. I also think that generally history points to when these kinds of disruptions happen, they create new and unexpected sectors and jobs that it's much harder to predict the new and positive outcomes because they're not there right now, whereas it's much easier to see what's going to be disrupted and hurt. So I'm fundamentally optimistic. I also think that, you know, a lot of these forces are beyond the control of any single country, and on some level we just have to lean into the positive side because cowering and waiting for bad things to happen is, you know, almost never the right response, right? So trying to insulate ourselves from possible negative response, you know, negative outcomes in the way that global labor, global trade flows, you know, global organization of value chains, all those things are going to change. We just have to, I think, you know, try to be nimble and respond and try to find the positive opportunities. I don't know what else to do, basically. I wanted to also— there was a question over here around how African countries can regulate AI when a lot of it is being produced elsewhere. And I think that's actually a really critical question. For me, I think if you look back at the data privacy, which is a question that's maybe 10 years old at this point and is a lot further along than what to do about AI, what to do about social media platforms and data privacy and that kind of thing. The dynamic you saw was a lot of those things being created in the United States and a few specific countries, and then Europe and a few other countries coming up with regulations to manage them that then became kind of a global norm. And I think looking to that model might be very interesting, I think, for African countries who maybe feel like, you know, this stuff is happening somewhere else, looking to see who else is a potential ally. How can we construct, you know, coalition across countries who all maybe have similar sets of incentives? I think Europe is potentially, and again, potentially a positive ally in that case, but other, other parts of the world as well. And saying, look, how do we, how do we come together as a bloc and put forward a set of policies and regulations that we can all adhere to and get benefit out of and protect our workforce as well as get the most, you know, the most positive benefits. So that would be a perspective I would have on that particular question.

No, thank you so much, Eric.

Merci.

Je voulais juste ici ajouter parce que—

Thank you.

There's something I'd like to add. 3 questions were asked, but one was on regulatory authorities, another was about The legal framework, rules and regulations. Let me take— let me wear my hat as an executive. And I would say a country cannot develop or put AI initiatives in place without having an AI national policy, because strategy means you're working with others. You're working with the national systems in collaboration. All the countries' needs have to be put together. AI has to have an action plan over 3 years, 5 years. But as a country, you have to decide what it is you're putting together for AI. Which areas do you want to give focus to when it comes to AI? So that's the first very clear point, I think. Second thing I think we should Bear in mind, we're talking about data. On the one hand, how can you talk about an AI strategy if you don't have a data strategy? The two must go together. If you have a strategy for data, then obviously you will have an AI strategy. Or you take the two, put them together in a single document with a very clear, forward-looking strategy for the country. There was a question about regulatory authorities when we talk about AI, but I think an answer has already been provided to that question. But the same thing applies when we're putting in place frameworks. We've talked about the frameworks for artificial intelligence, and we realize that if a country doesn't have a regulatory framework, laws for AI, then it's very difficult because there are going to be other areas where laws are required that go along with those laws for AI. I thought it was important to make that point of Clarification? Thank you.

As the response, Mwende?

I'd say majority has been said. I'll just focus on 2 key areas. One of the panellists did highlight an issue with implementation, and I will highlight that as I also respond to the question that was asked by the founder from Somalia. On what training can we have for young people to ensure that they create solutions and innovations? So our first challenge that we have currently is we have an issue with implementation of existing policies. And like we all know, Africa has amazing policies. We have very beautiful shelved policies. And so what we do is we create AI platforms that translate these policies. And that could be one of the ways that young people in Africa can use their skills to create solutions and innovations. And I think it doesn't have to be a specific way. It doesn't have to follow a specific pattern because, again, the conversation on us being users and not developers has been brought up so many times. And so we also need to realize that our abilities can only get to a certain level when it comes to actually using AI at the current moment. As I finish up, I would say that it is important that we ensure that our young people are getting direct mentorship. There's still a huge gap in the mentorship in the AI space, because not a lot of us have expertise in that. But if you happen to find an expert in that, please hold on to them, because it's really, really important. And my last words would be, it is about time that we move from the Book of Lamentations when it comes to matters AI and the youth, and open the page of Acts. Thank you.

Thank you. I think that we have just 1 or 2 minutes left and I see the colleagues already looking at me, so I use those 2 minutes, I will leave it with our colleague Camilla of Oxford Martin School on her final reflection. She may like to touch on some of the questions or she may just say her take from this.

Thank you.

This session.

Thank you, Director. I think what I take from this is there's more questions than answers that we have, which really calls for more data and research to understand how AI and technology and innovation will impact our economies. Automation and bringing a robot into, for example, a restaurant in Africa will likely create a job to bring in someone who understands how that robot will fit into the ecosystem, whereas the same robot will actually displace a job in China. So I think it's important to put into context all these discussions in terms of how do they apply to the context of our economies. One big thing I think is in terms of skills and the opportunity to leapfrog. We don't have to use AI or develop AI in the way that we have seen it developed in advanced markets. We don't have to follow those systems. And I think we've already seen it happening with different technologies in terms of climate applications, in terms of agricultural applications. So maybe looking at some of the opportunities and some of the skills that align with our sectors of growth and that align with unique opportunities that we have. Let me stop there. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you so much. I think we don't have any more time for further comments. I will just ask all of us to join me to give a hand of applause to our panelists.

Thank you very much, Director Lusinge, and our esteemed panelists. Please join me one more time in giving them a round of applause for a great panel. Distinguished guests, as we await our next panel, may I kindly invite you to Can everybody please stand up? I'm told by the doctors that this is good for us to stretch a little bit after, you know, sitting for 2 panels. So please feel free to stretch. Don't hit anybody on your left or your right, but let's stretch a little bit. All right. And now can you please talk to the person beside you and remind them to join us for the cocktail later on?

Thank you.

Just say you're invited. I hope I'll see you there. There are lovely refreshments. All right, and then remind them that there's also the knowledge fair. Thank you so much. You may please be seated. Okay, we have one more thematic session and a very short impact talk remaining today. We will now move to thematic session C, which will focus on Unlocking Regional Value Chains Within the African Continental Free Trade Area to Empower Youth-Led Enterprises Across Africa. This session will be moderated by Melaku Desta, Director in the Regional Integration and Trade Division at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. Joining him for this discussion are Tasha Chitika, founder, Wingy General Dealers. Gugulethu Siso, chief executive officer of Thumeza. Semhal Gouache Berri, founder and CEO, Cabana Design. Shipra Chisha, president, African Women in Business. Fetene Aragaw, business development manager, A-Trade Group; Andrew Aliyu, Regional Economist, Regional Office for Africa, International Labour Organization; and Emmanuel Subiran, Policy and Program Officer for Trade and Economic Integration, Delegation of the European Commission to the African Union and ECA. Director Desta, you have the floor. The session is scheduled for 65 minutes, but if you want to use less, we are very happy. Thank you so much. Over to you.

Okay.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, Excellencies, and thank you, Master of Ceremony, by reminding us all about the cocktail. I'm not sure if you are helping this session or not. because we are already very late, but we'll try our best. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a great session. A lot of effort has gone into this. My name is Malakou Desta. I'm the Acting Director of the Regional Integration and Trade Division, and the work, the underlying work for this was done by the colleagues from the Subregional Office in Southern Africa, for to whom I'm really, really grateful, in collaboration with the ILO and the Southern African Youth Forum. So I'm very, very grateful that we have put this session together, and of course it very much resonates. It's at the heart of the entire conversation that we are having here. Titled Unlocking Regional Value Chains and Empowering Africa's User-Led Enterprises to Thrive Under the AfCFTA. So regional value chains, user-led enterprises, the AfCFTA— these are the 3 buzzwords that we have here. We always talk about the AfCFTA in very high-sounding terms, for good reasons, because we believe if it is properly implemented, This is a platform that can help all of us unleash the power of economy of scale and take Africa forward significantly. I don't have a lot of time, as you can imagine. Initially, we were told we had an hour and 15 minutes, then that was cut down to about an hour and 5 minutes, so I'm not going to take long to introduce this session, but let me just give you an outline of how we are going to run this. First, we will hear from 3 colleagues here on the stage, 3 young ladies who are doing some inspiring work. We are going to hear their testimonials about their experience as entrepreneurs. 2 come from the Southern Africa region, from Zimbabwe and another from Zambia, and the 3rd one comes from here, closer to home, from within Ethiopia. And then that will be followed by a panel discussion among the other colleagues that you see on the stage here. So without further ado, I'm going to follow the sequence that I have in front of me. And I'm going to start by asking Mrs. Gugulethu Sisulu, founder of TUMESA in Zimbabwe, to take the next 4 minutes maximum and give us your testimonials, your experiences, and the extent to which the FCFTA can help and hopefully does not hinder the work that you are trying to do would be very helpful, and then of course we'll be identifying the key issues around which all the other colleagues will be having a conversation about. Over to you, Gugu. 4 minutes from now, please.

Good afternoon, everyone. I think you've been hearing a lot of my voice for the past hour, so no need for introductions in essence. indicated, I'm the CEO as well as the founder of Tumiza Enterprises. We're a fintech that provides working capital financing to the logistics sector. My intervention, in essence, is just going to be a quick sharing of the Tumiza story as well as my story. Tumiza started off in 2018 in Zimbabwe as a last-mile logistics company. This was in response to when Uber had just gotten into the market, and Uber was moving goods, you know, for people across the world, but in Zimbabwe, we hadn't quite gotten there to that point. As you quickly realize, anyone who has ever done any form of e-commerce support system, volumes are what make or break you. If you do not have the volumes, you do not have a business because the margins are too small. Quickly realized that the hard way, and then quick— and then pivoted to now moving goods on behalf of retailers such as Pick 'n Pay, Spar, to name a few. We moved their goods within my hometown. Shout out to Bulawayo if there's anyone from here. Doesn't look like it. But yes, quickly started moving goods on behalf of Pick 'n Pay, let's say from warehouse to warehouse, in essence just last-mile fulfillment. Then once again realized that there's not too much money in that sector, moved up the value chain again to now freight, which which in essence is moving goods for the Pick 'n Pays within Zimbabwe, as well as cross-border to South Africa, Zambia, Botswana, as well as a couple of others. Then COVID hit. I think many of us in business, if you're in logistics, I see there's a gentleman smiling over there, he already knows what I'm about to say. COVID hit, which means that logistics, which is already an industry which is plagued by lengthy payment timelines, In essence, what you were getting in, let's say, 45 days, you are now getting in 90 days, if you're lucky. And remember, there's no one in an office, so businesses could get away with saying, ah, we'll see you when we get to the office once a week. So if you don't have any form of leverage, and by leverage I mean either you are a transporter with quite, you know, a lot of vehicles, or you have some form of leverage, there's no one who's going to take you seriously. Unfortunately, we were forced to shut down. that particular business model because we owed so much money to our transporters that by the time we got paid, everything just went to our debts and there was nothing left. So I took a break and I sat down and I was like, let me figure out my life. Maybe let me look for a job. Then I started getting some phone calls from our transporters saying, hey, so remember how you would give us a little bit of money for fuel in order to service Pick 'n Pay? Turns out they'd been taking that money that I was giving them for fuel to then get to drop off the goods and then come back with cash trips. Cash trips that might not pay them as much, but meaning cash in hand. So in essence, I'd been financing these people without realizing it. So I was like, I think there's a business model there. I can make money off of this and I can, you know, sleep well at night, which is something that I think if you were to see me 4 years ago, you'd see that there's a big difference, which is what has currently led to our current business model, which is to measure financing, how we are now actually providing invoice financing for the logistics sector. A typical transaction is that we will approach an entity such as Pick 'n Pay, who heavily outsources. We finance their logistics transporters upon delivery, and then Pick 'n Pay pays us at the end of a prescribed payment timeline with, of course, a percentage for us. However, in terms of the AFCFTA, I think we are one of the companies that have been able to walk the talk in terms of cross-border trade because we currently have transactions in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Kenya, as well as Uganda. But I'll be very honest, this is something that I wish someone had sat me down and said, are you sure that you're able to actually service what you're swallowing right now? The key issues that we're facing in terms of this: dispute resolution as well as payments. So I'm going to finish this off in 1 minute. By dispute resolution, I mean once you have a contract with someone in Kenya from South Africa, jurisdiction is a big issue. If someone owes you money, your court process is not the simplest thing to do. You have to sue them in South Africa, get a judgment, then go to Kenya and sue them and get another judgment. How many of us can actually afford that, let alone a small-scale trader? Same thing, payments. I've got my South African rands, I need to give you Kenya shillings. As much as we've got the PAPSS, right, that's not actually active in our corner of the world in Southern Africa, which means that I need to buy USD, get it to Kenya, and then when they are now trying to pay me back, they need to buy USD and send it back. And with businesses that rely on extremely small margins, this is not worth it. So I know that I do not have any more time, but that is our experience with trading across Thank you very much.

The, the moment you start talking about, uh, the, the issue of conflicting judgments or carrying judgments from one jurisdiction to another, you took me by— you took me back to my days as a professor of international law. So, uh, now I'm going to go to Mrs. Tasha founder, Wingi Generals Dealer, Zambia. Tasha, you also have 4 minutes. I'm hoping that you will tell us your story within 4 minutes. Over to you.

Thank you very much for this opportunity. I'm Tasha, the founder of Wingi General Dealers, a company that deals in the importation of table salt and coarse salt because, you know, salt is a natural resource, and Zambia, we don't have that natural resource, so we depend on countries like Botswana and Namibia to have our table salt. And being a cross-border trader as a woman and as a youth is not an easy thing. Like, there are many challenges, and also there are many opportunities. And I'll just highlight a few challenges and also a few opportunities, because it might take me the whole day talking about cross-border trade. So some of the challenges are theft. In cross-border trade, there's so much theft. 5 in 4 SMEs, cross-border traders, have lost money. Why? Because they lack knowledge and there are many middlemen and there are also cartels that have been operating in cross-border trade for a while. The second challenge is forex. I cannot exchange the Zambian kwacha to the Botswanan pula or the Namibian dollar. I need to rely on unregulated money changers who are found at the borders. So you'd find that the currency will be strengthening, but then because they are unregulated, they will not be able to reduce or— they want to also make a profit at the end of the day, in short. Then the other challenge is delay. Sometimes you'd find that because Namibia has got its own clearing process, and the papers need to move from Namibia. When the agent from Namibia is done, they are sent to Zambia, and then your truck is released, inspection. So you lose time, and some transporters get frustrated. The other challenge is monopoly. There are many big players in cross-border border trade, and you find that you are relying on the same supplier, and they'll go to the supplier and say, I'm the only one who wants to be sourcing products from you. I don't want these others. If it were you, what would you do? You'd go and say, we can't sell you anymore. But you're asking, Tasha, how have you managed? So how to— So how do I deal, or how do we deal with theft? Number one, the introduction of mobile money services. Actually, 3 weeks ago, I just used Airtel Money to send money to Kenya, and I was so excited.

Yes.

So you can now pay your customs duty directly to your supplier or to your transporter. without depending on an agent. And also, the other way is having the right information and talking to the right people. Then when it comes to forex, so how do we deal with forex in cross-border trade? You identify some traders from Namibia or Botswana that, you know, sell and import goods from Zambia. Then you exchange 0 to 1 to 1, nothing like, no, 1 point what, no. It is 1 to 1 and it has really worked. The challenge, the other challenge I forgot to mention is transportation costs. Transport is very expensive. How do we deal with transportation costs? There are backloads. Zambia is a land-linked country and we have many trucks going to Durban, Port David, Walvis Bay Port, So when those truck companies deliver their goods, they are likely to come back empty. So we utilize that transport at a lower rate to transport our goods. And then delayed clearing of goods. So the moment your goods are loaded, you get the papers, send them to your agent, and they start processing— before the truck even starts off, they start processing your goods so that by the time your truck is going to get at the border, they would find that the documents are ready. Yes, and I would also just love to say that it is doable. If I can do it, every youth can do it. And many sectors in Africa, they are not ready for us, the youths. So we can't just sit down and wait for things to change or work in our favor. We need to step in there.

Thank you.

there and fight because we are the future leaders and we can do it. Let us step in sectors where others are afraid of stepping in. Thank you.

If I can do it, all of us can do it. Wonderful. I think that should be the slogan of this session. Thank you very much, Tasha. And now I go to Samahal Gush Barheh. CEO of Kabbana Leather from here in Addis. Kabbana, I think, is the name of the village.

Am I correct?

Or is it Kabbana? Kabbana, I'm told, because there is also a village, an area of the city called Kabbana. Please, over to you, Kabbana.

Thank you so much, Malaku. Usually people assume that we are from the Kabbana River.

Exactly.

Kabbana is an old word. means directly from us to you. I am the founder and CEO of Kabbana Design. We are downstairs at the Knowledge Fair for those of you who haven't seen us. I started Kabbana as a young entrepreneur around 2017 after successfully failing 3 businesses. I think I would say successful because all of them taught me all the taxation that go into a business, all the impact that needs to bring, and all the hurdles that a business owner needs to have. I'm a soldier's daughter. Both my parents are government workers, so I have no history of business. All I had to do was fail and learn. We grew the business from a small startup to an export-oriented manufacturing company. We became the biggest bag exporter in the country running 2023 and 2024. It was a successful business without any kind of investment or outside financing. We have exported close to $3 million in leather goods, but unfortunately only— I mean, less than a quarter of it was within my continent. I think we've created jobs for our community. By policy and by design, we hire women, and most of the women are coming from our community. I don't know if in other African countries we have it. In Ethiopia, government has a policy to support women who are returnees or deported from Gulf countries. We directly hire from that, from shelters. We've trained around 250 people directly in our factory. COVID, as my friend was saying earlier, gave us a wake-up call. We pivoted into a textile business, which opened our textile business. That means well, it was a problem child, but it allowed us to expand not only to US market, Germany, but also within Africa. After COVID, we opened our first shop in Kigali. Maybe we expanded too quickly because Ethiopia hadn't rectified the African Free Trade Zone tariffs, so it didn't give us that opportunity to be able to take advantage of the tariffs. We opened 2022, but our biggest advantage or our biggest export came in 2026, where we exported around 2,000 shoes and close to 1,000 bags, where we're seeing the advantage with the tariffs, where I am able to see sourcing from Africa. Recently, we had a meeting with YKK zipper that we can source directly from Swaziland through South Africa. That gives us the advantage that we can source within Africa and get the advantage that our continent has. We can manufacture through Africa as well by collaborating with other entrepreneurs in Rwanda as well as in Kenya. So that means our biggest export becoming 90% to U.S. will now be reversed into an African export. So one of the things I've learned is it's not the talent that was the problem. It was really the access, and I was able to see that we were not able to finance most of our purchase orders directly. Even if you get like 100,000 purchase orders, if you cannot be able to finance it, lack of the finance for young entrepreneurs became a bottleneck for us. We had to, I don't know, dissect those orders into 3, 4 purchase orders, spreading it through the years. What I also understood is also cross-border payments and trade barriers were there. If I'm able to sell from Rwanda, I can accept via M-Pesa from Kenya, but I'm not able to accept any kind of money from Ethiopia. I can pay from Rwanda to Ethiopia, but I cannot pay from Ethiopia to Rwanda. So those are some of the things that cross-border payments that I've understood. Logistics and shipments, I mean, my friends have already said it here on the panel. We had to use Ethiopian Cargo. even though Rwanda was very close, if we were using road transport, which would have been cheaper. But, I mean, that's— it's a developing country, right? So we're still yet to take advantage of those things. Also, what I've understood is with these jobs, with this trading, we can be unlocking a lot more jobs than what we currently have.

So I'm very happy to be an African SME giving testimonial Ladies and gentlemen, I think you will agree with me that between these 3 colleagues we have heard some very inspiring stories, really. I mean, if I start from the last one, for example, to hear that the FCFTA market, the African market, is providing an alternative to the foreign non-African markets that used to be available. In the case of AGOA, for example, I still remember when the beneficiary— Ethiopia was removed from the beneficiary list there and how many textile companies in particular were impacted. And now you are telling us you are looking to Africa not just as a market to export export to, to sell in, but also as a market to source from. That, I think, is the kind of story that we want to hear when we talk about the AfCFTA. And then, Tasha, I think you identified a number of the challenges that affect anyone who dares to try to become an entrepreneur on this continent. You reminded me when you were talking about this, reminded me of a panel that I was in the audience, but then the panel was Aliko Dangote, and he was talking about his experience being an industrialist, a manufacturer in the continent. And he made this very interesting point at one point when he said, look, when the judgment day comes, those of us who have been trying to be industrialists on the African continent will go directly to heaven because we have already paid our prices while we're on earth. So I think that is the kind of— you're talking about knowledge gaps and cartels, monopolies, payment challenges, delays, you name it. So I thought that was the— and despite all that, you conclude by saying—

Yes.

If I can do it, anybody can do it, and it can be done. And Google too, I think the way you started talking about Uber coming into Zimbabwe and then how that started affecting the market and then how it went into freight transport across borders and then COVID and then the need to improvise in the face of COVID And then you conclude by talking about the issue of dispute resolution, conflict resolution, where you are right. You know, if you ask Emmanuel on our panel, he'll tell you how they tried to overcome this issue of judgments delivered in one country not recognized in another country, for example, through a treaty mechanism. And then I think we'll come to all those issues in a moment. Ladies and gentlemen, I think the challenges have been laid out in front of us by these 3 inspiring colleagues on the stage: access to finance, market access opportunities, information, anti-competitive practices, and of course the issue of payments and settlements, currency convertibility. All of these things have been have been raised. And now I'm going to go to my panelists. I have some 4 very qualified eminent colleagues on the stage. I have Mrs. Shipra Chisholm, who comes from the Graça Machel Trust, the Business Council. We have Mr. Fatana Aragau, who comes from AITRED, and then my colleague Mr. Andrew Aliyu from the International Labour Organization, and our friend and colleague Mr. Emmanuel Subiro from the European Union office here in Addis. So these colleagues will be able to shed light on some of the challenges that have been raised here. So I will follow the sequence that I have, and panelists, if you try to limit your interventions to a maximum of 5 minutes, we'll be able to give a chance to the audience, to the room here, because as you can see, they are very patient, they are waiting and listening to us at this time of the day. So, Shubhra, I'm going to come to you. As someone who comes from the Graça Machel Trust, which does a great job of supporting women to grow enterprises— you were talking about it earlier during your own interventions— expand financial access, and become architects of economic change. Can you please tell us what, in your view, are the major finance-related impediments that face youth-led businesses, and how digital marketplace and e-commerce platforms can help youth enterprises access regional and continental markets using the FCFTA as a platform? You have 5 minutes.

Thank you very much. Thanks. I think as I was listening to the youngsters talking, to the youth talking, I was thinking about a couple of years back when we were looking at the African Continental Free Trade and we were saying that this is gender-blind, and at that point we then looked at the Protocol on Youth women and youth, and I've got a lot of answers and questions for them as well, but I just sat here and I thought, we were thinking about the agreement being gender-blind, now we're thinking about the implementation and how do we need to implement, and what are the challenges that what we created needs to be— what needs to be sorted so that we can do it, we can look at implementation. But going— I'm going to stick to my script, so so that I can keep the 5 minutes, because, as I say, I've got quite a lot to say. But just maybe thinking about an example of one of our entrepreneurs, Diana Kachingwe from Malawi, an entrepreneur that was supported by the Graça Machel Trust, and you'll hear me talking about the Graça Machel Trust, the African Women in Business, as well as the SADC Business Council, because I represent all those organizations. The Graça Machel Trust Women Creating Wealth Jumpstarters program. Through our catalytic financing, mentorship, and digital business training, she was able to strengthen her productivity— she was— capacity, and she was able to access markets and also assist beyond her immediate community through digital platforms. This is where financing begins to translate into trade. Her monthly sales increased 45% in income. Her enterprise enterprise move from local survival business into digitally connected trading activity with wider market reach, showing how financing and digital access together unlock real trade outcomes. Now, she further expanded into cross-border digital services and delivering online training to 83 participants in Mozambique, in Kenya, as well as Zambia, demonstrating that youth enterprises are no longer confined to local markets, but increasingly are part of the regional and digital services and value chains. So the key question then that we have and we're looking at is what financing mechanisms can realistically be scaled. I think behind me we're saying that today we are here to look at innovative solutions to enable more youth enterprises like this, and how do we ensure that digital platforms functions as through trade infrastructure under the AFCFTA. Now, from my experience at the Graça Machel Trust, through this program that I mentioned, the Women Creating Wealth Program, which has reached over 6,400 women who have created over 30,000 youth jobs and are looking at impacting more than— and have impacted more than 100,000 livelihoods, youth entrepreneurship must be understood as a pathway for structural transformation, value addition, as well as regional integration, not only job creation. The Jumpstarter model that I've mentioned shows that effective support must combine catalytic grants, it must combine mentorship, it must combine investment readiness support. If one does the one without the other, you're setting up young people for failure. It needs to be a 360. Through this approach, youth entrepreneurs across 6 countries have been supported to move from ideas to scalable enterprises. These are some of the solutions that we have offered. In Senegal, we had an entrepreneur, Anta, who used the program support to strengthen her digital strategy and business capacity. Her revenue increased by 11%. She created jobs for young people, and she also trained young people through digital areas. This reinforces for us the key lesson that financing or finance only becomes transformative when it is linked to capacity building or capability, markets, and implementation support. So, as I say, if we want to make sure that young people succeed, we need to make sure that we provide all this. This is why mechanisms such as non-collateral lending, challenge funds, purchase order financing, crowdfunding, and I think this morning it was mentioned, but blended finance models are essential for scaling youth entrepreneurs. And we have a lot of— in Malawi, for example, we supported financial institutions to increase non-collateral loan ceilings with certain thresholds, removing structural barriers that limit youth participation in production. So the AFCFTA requires us to treat digital platforms platforms, not as e-commerce tools, but as regional trade transformation. These platforms enable markets to access suppliers, to connect suppliers, to look at logistics and coordination, and also to look at digital payments. So in closing, the challenge is not only to create youth-owned enterprises, but to ensure that they move from survival entrepreneurship to competitive, to value-creating, to enterprise embedded in the regional value chains, which aligns our focus today looking at implementation, scaling what works, and accountability for the results. Then the success will be measured not only by policy commitments, which I think is what has been discussed this morning, but by enterprises that are scaling, that are looking at creating jobs, that are accessing markets, and that are making sure that livelihoods are transformed. So AFCFTA provides us with a platform. The young people are providing us with innovation. Let's look at how to deal with that.

Thank you very much, Shipra. I think clearly the thrust, you know, even from that one project, talking about creating 6,000+ jobs, I think it's something that must be recognized, applauded, and all. So now I'm going to go to Mr. Fatana Aragao from AITrade. Fatana, as someone who comes from AITrade, which is, I think, I'm sure you will say something about that, I find these are one of the pioneering enterprises in the digital trade field in particular. So, and earlier when Tasha was talking about how excited she was when the idea of mobile money came, I was thinking about the question I was preparing to ask you. So can you tell us, please, what governments can do to accelerate the development of digital trade corridors, smart corridors, smart borders, and what would be your advice for SMEs to translate their online presence into cross-border trade, physical deliveries, and then payments. Over to you, Fattah. You have 5 minutes.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. From A-Trade's perspective, we believe that the real challenge is not whether African entrepreneurs are entrepreneurial potential or not. We believe they clearly do have the entrepreneurial potential. The real challenge is that many youth-led enterprises are not fully utilizing the ecosystem to access the market. So here comes the major challenges that face these SMEs. Most of the challenges include standards and certification issues, market information issue, and secure payment issue, and of course, as mentioned, logistics and financing issue. And there is also trust issue between buyers and sellers, and there is also a gap in skill among the entrepreneurs or SMEs. As a result, even if there are opportunities across the FCFTA, SMEs are not able to convert those opportunities, and actual transactions are not being made. The key issue here is that market access must be viewed as a complete journey, not just a single intervention. So, as a solution, we recommend 3 actions. One is the youth or SMEs must be trade-ready before they are asked to export. So before we ask young entrepreneurs to export, we must help them improve product quality, packaging, standard compliance, and business documentation processes, pricing, and also digital readiness. So export success begins before products reach a border. So we believe the first task should be educating the entrepreneurs. So the second issue is connecting young entrepreneurs to the real buyers through platforms like SocoCo Africa, which is an e-commerce platform under A-Trade Group, business can gain visibility beyond their local communities and access the regional market. So through SOCOCO, market visibility will be created. However, visibility alone is not enough, so there is also a need to complete transactions, which is a critical action. So even if there is a trade opportunity, only it becomes real when a buyer can trust the seller, payments can be made securely, and goods can be delivered efficiently, and both parties can operate within a predictable framework. So this needs to operate an integrated ecosystem, which is essential for the SMEs to be active in the ecosystem. So under the African Continental Free Trade Area, digital marketplaces and e-commerce platforms can only play a transformative role by reducing distance and connecting businesses across borders. However, effective digital platforms must do more than simply display products online. So they must provide, like mentioned earlier, trust must be assured between traders, and there should be secure payment infrastructure, logistics support, and training and capacity building. And lastly, access to finance is critical for the success of the overall ecosystem. So usually there is a mismatch common misconception, online presence alone automatically leads to trade, but the reality is that most SMEs may have social media pages or storefronts, but yet still they struggle to conduct cross-border business. So the key bottlenecks here remain the same. There is trust issue, And payment issue, logistics, and access to finance and compliance issues remain the key bottlenecks. So governments here should intervene by integrating the general ecosystem or by developing digital trade corridors and smart borders. Through digitizing the entire ecosystem or the entire trade journey from business registration and product verification, electronic certificates and compliance documentation, digital payments and financial infrastructures, logistics tracking and border management, and buyer-seller verification and trust frameworks are necessary that— are necessary that the government should intervene. At A-Trade Group, we are building exactly this type of ecosystem. We have Swakopmund Africa, which is a market which creates market access and continental visibility for the SMEs. We also have A-Trust, which is a secure transaction payment system that supports buyer-seller transaction and builds trust. There is AE Logistics for the fulfillment and delivery coordination, and we have also AE Learning Platform for the capacity building and digital trade training for the SMEs. And for the finance facilitation, we also have Investment Alliance Wing that provides access to finance for the SMEs.

I'm having to ask you to finish, Fadlallah, please.

Okay. And lastly, the most transformative intervention for youth enterprises is the creation of a complete support pathway. Training alone is not enough, and access to market is not enough, and marketplace alone is not enough. So young entrepreneurs need to— need all of the following connected systems as an ecosystem, like business formalization and product readiness, digital visibility, market access and logistics, and access to finance and secure payments are necessary to be connected. So when these elements are connected, youth enterprises can move from survival entrepreneurship to competitive participants in the regional and value chains. So the concrete commitment regarding the concrete commitment for e-trade for the coming 1.5 years, we will work on onboarding SMEs to SOCOCO Africa. Thousands of SMEs will be onboarded on that, and for this purpose, we will deploy digital trade advisors across the countries that we operate. And we will enable secure transaction support and strengthen logistics access. And finally, we will work with financial institutions to improve access to finance. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Fatana. I know you have a lot to tell us about this in this area. I still remember meeting your colleague from A-Trade when we were still at the drafting stage of the FCFTA Agreement back 10 years ago, and I'm happy to see that you are still going strong and you are helping us come up with innovative solutions. Now, I'm going to come to you, Andrew. Andrew, only you from the ILO. You come from the ILO, an institution which is critical to our discourse here. And, of course, I would like to thank you for joining us. My question to you centers around access to established businesses. Very often when we talk about youth-led businesses, we talk about SMEs, and we— of course, we love to support SMEs, but at some point, at least some of the SMEs, hopefully, we also want to see them grow into large businesses, right? That's what success is. Now, what can be done to strengthen linkages with big businesses, for example, Andrew? What is the role of initiatives such as supplier development programs and the like in the effort to connect youth-led enterprises with large enterprises? And then where do you see those opportunities for network value chains, linkages, etc. Over to you, Andrew, you have 5 minutes.

Thank you very much, Malachy, and thanks to the team for this opportunity, and good afternoon, everyone. You mentioned about supplier development programmes. It's interesting, this is the first time it's been mentioned throughout these conversations. This conversation. So I will take probably a few seconds to talk about it as the approach that has been used. So supplier development programs generally are initiatives that help small and medium-scale enterprises to become more competitive suppliers. Suppliers, to large businesses, to multilaterals, to multinationals, and to government agencies and export markets. Basically, supplier development programs link the small actors to the big boys, if you like. The overall objective normally is is to strengthen the capabilities of local suppliers so that they can meet the requirements of the big players. And these requirements mostly are around product quality, standards, reliability, production capacity, because most of the small businesses don't have production capacity, adequate capacity, but importantly also regulations, because regulations have been— is one culprit for putting small businesses out of business. But when you talk about regulations, since you say I'm from the ILO, we also talk about occupational safety, health, And environmental compliance. Small businesses also struggle with technological innovation, so supplier development programs help to support them with that. Yes, so these are supplier development programs generally, but why are they relevant to youth in particular? Of course, most of the speakers here have spoken quite eloquently around the barriers youth-led enterprises face. For example, lack of market access. What supplier development programmes do is to link or introduce small businesses. We have good examples. For example, the Kenya Linkages Program. They also help to address the issue of credibility that young enterprises lack, skills gap, and small scale, and also what's— the issues around information asymmetry. Small businesses normally lack this, and supplier development Programs try to fill that gap and connect them. So, so for example, a typical supplier business supplier development program in agro processing will, for example, identify a promising youth-led enterprise, help them to meet issues like food safety, and then connect them to some. Working capital and some supermarket chain. So this is how they operate. And then now, how can we strengthen them? In short, it's really a twofold or two-pronged intervention. One, we seek to address their capability constraints on one hand, But on the other hand, we also help them meet the requirements of the larger farms and the regional value chain. Effective approaches have used a combination which I think one of the colleagues mentioned: skills, enterprise upgrading, market access facilitation, and incentives for and incentivizing lead firms. So, I mean, they— strengthening them, I mentioned the issue about capability. It still remains— I mean, we joke about the continuous capacity building, but it still remains a significant dimension of how these youth enterprises or youth-led enterprises can be— of course, the issues around capacity should really become a package bundle that looks at, as I said, skills, finance, standards, and upgrading markets. Lessons from ILO interventions. around Africa suggest that youth enterprises succeed when they go beyond entrepreneurship training, but also really trying to understand how the market operates or functions. That leads me to a second point, which is quite important.

And if you can finalize in 1 minute. Yes, I'm here.

That training alone is not sufficient, that— because most of our interventions are supplier-driven. It's important that we make supplier development really demand-led and ensure that the supplier development programs are actually embedded in market systems. Most often we try to capacitate them in the hope that they will find their way into markets and value chains. So our interventions, ILO interventions in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Kenya point strongly to this evidence. We've also been doing quite a lot in refugee host communities in Kenya, and we are doing something here in Ethiopia, an approach we call AIMS. AIMS is an approach to inclusive market systems. It has 2 dimensions. One is the pool dimension, which will help to develop markets and value chains to create opportunities. Then the push dimension is actually to work with these groups so that they— with the right skills and capabilities so they can access those opportunities. So the AIMS approach is actually being used in currently over 25 countries on the continent. Then just one last point, Malaka. Issues around being intentional, really, if you want to, the issues around actually targeting youth-led, but also creating incentives for the larger farms to deal with the youth. There are strong examples in South Africa, for example, Zambia and Zimbabwe on points that we are working on. Thanks and over.

Thank you very much, Andrew. Again, you know, I would have loved to give you more time so we could hear the full, you know, presentation, but we have to cut you short, unfortunately, because of time. Now I'm going to go to Mr. Subirao Emmanuel. As someone who comes from one of the major partners and supporters of Africa's development endeavors, the European Union. I would like to ask you, Emmanuel, to please speak to us about the major finance-related impediments for the youth enterprise. We know finance is a big issue even for the established businesses, let alone for the small players, for the young players who are just starting. And what, you know, what can be done about this? Perhaps there might also be lessons that we can learn from the European experience in this area. So if you take 5 minutes, if you take— if you limit yourself to 5 minutes, Emmanuel, you'll also allow me to give a chance for 1 or 2 persons in the audience to ask questions. You have 5 minutes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, merci bien. Je vais passer au français pour les Francophones.

Thank you. I'm going to give the vote to the Francophones now. So what we have seen in the past years is the decrease of ODAs. And also less funds coming from donors. And one thing that we would like to focus on is the mixed blended financing because blended financing is considered as a leverage these days and also reduces risks for the private sector in terms of investors And so on. And the European Union— I'm going to talk what we do within the European Union, and we also have similar mechanisms in mainland Europe, and we try to adapt them for partner countries. And the major initiative of the European Union is called the Global Gateway. I believe you have heard about it, and it rolls between 2021 until 2026, and we have billions of euros. And half of that budget, which is €115 billion, is for the African continent. And I believe if 80% of the objectives is attained, then we will go beyond this $150 billion. So we focus on infrastructures, but not only on infrastructures. I would like to mention one initiative which is important in terms of supporting small and medium enterprises. So it has a name in English. It's called Investing in Youth Businesses in Africa. This fund is considered as a guarantee fund, around €700 million. So, this means it is money available to reduce risks for local banks to lend money for SMEs. We also talk about €300 million fund for programs and projects. We have 8 to 10 regional projects around 20 African countries. Here, we try to provide the seed money and everything related to support. We have understood that financing only is not enough, and we also want to support those SMEs. So, this project is supported by the European Union and 13 EU member states, as well as public and private banks. What we have seen is that access to financing is a really serious issue, but we also have several solutions to address it. Often, it's about scale. There was a study of the World Bank a few years back saying that to support a company, financial partners would have to put $10,000 to support that company. Now, if we need to support thousands and millions of companies in the continent, we would be short of financial resources. I remember a project where we were able to support 5,000 young entrepreneurs. We were very happy. But when it comes to the number of young entrepreneurs in the market, it was just extremely small. So, the question is, how can we scale up this? And thanks to blended financing, we were able to raise a lot of financial resources. And it's not only to provide guarantees or collaterals for big commercial banks. But it's also used to support or create local funds that would directly support SMEs and particularly youth and women in their entrepreneurial endeavor. So, we would like to support those funds on capital risk, but we also work with accelerators, incubators, One specific point I would like to raise here in terms of innovation is supporting the diaspora, African diaspora, those in Europe specifically, and migrants, mainly those returnees in their respective countries, because We have, on this specific point, on supporting the diaspora, we have noted that several people of the diaspora want to invest in the African continent, and they do not know how to do it financially. So, when they put money, there are projects where we can have top-ups to support their projects. And I have a lot of examples to share. But let me stop here. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Emmanuel. You also did it in good time. I hope the entrepreneurs sitting around me will be asking for your card before you leave. So, ladies and gentlemen, I'm not doing justice to this panel because I don't have time even to highlight some of the key points that have come out, but let me allow 2 questions, 1 minute each, 2 questions. I see a lady's hand over there and another lady over there, 2 of them, that's it. One here, one there, 2 ladies and that's it. Yes, please.

Thank you very much.

This was a session that I was looking forward to it. So we speak a lot about moving goods under this FCFTA. But goods don't move on their own, right? Truck drivers, transport workers, they are facing real barriers with visas and cross-border mobility. So let me be sharp and ask this question to ILO.

Yeah.

What concrete actions are being taken to address labor mobilities, and what are the biggest gaps still holding this back? We know that it's important, but what's holding it back? Maybe the other question is for the businesses. We hear that Pan-African Payment and Settlement System by AfriExim and FCFTA has been operational, but many businesses here still face major bottleneck. That's what each of them mentioned. I'm curious, have any of you used that system to transfer payment? What was your experience?

That would be nice to hear.

Thank you.

Very good questions. Thank you very much and to the point. Yes, please. Follow the same model. 1 minute, direct questions, please.

Thank you for this opportunity.

My name is Efrat Amathus.

I'm South Africa's Youth Forum Ambassador to the AU and Ethiopia.

So my question is to the entrepreneurs.

As entrepreneurs who successfully broke into regional markets?

What was the biggest hurdle you faced regarding capital when trying to scale across borders?

And what needs to change practically so that young women can also transition from survival entrepreneurship into competitive regional value chains?

Thank you.

Excellent questions. Thank you very, very much. So the first one is to you, Andrew. It is mainly about labour mobility, but I think it's bigger than that. It's about movement of persons in general. And if I had the time, I would have been very happy to talk at length about the Free Movement Protocol and the challenges facing. Nevertheless, you can take one minute to address that, Andrew, and then I will go to the colleagues to look at— to all the 3 to respond. Thank you, respond to these questions with 1 minute, just 1 minute max, please. Thank you.

Thank you very much. The ILO, of course, is doing quite a lot. We have the Continental Programme, the Joint Labour and Migration for Africa Programme. Through that Continental Framework, we have that works closely with the AU migration policy framework. There's also the continental strategies related to skills as well, skills mobility. We're also working on the portability of social security. At the RECS level, there's been a lot more advances, including the SACDEC protocol. We are also supporting work with the African Union with GCC countries.

So there are quite a lot to talk about.

Thank you very much, Andrew. Now let me ask each of the entrepreneurs to take 1 minute, please. There are 2 questions to all of you that I would like to touch on. We have PAPSS. We have been celebrating its launch. Has any of you used it? because you still talk about payment and settlement systems as a challenge. What's your experience? And the second one was, what was the biggest hurdle that you faced? On that, I think you have already told us, but maybe if you want to take half of your, you know, your 1-minute allocation, you can do that. Samah Al, please. I will start from you and I'll go this way.

Thank you.

For payment systems, we haven't been using that. The way we've been setting Yes. From Rwanda, we've been able to do— handle refunds. That allows us to do the— receive the payments, but if a client doesn't want the product, we can be able to do the refunds. But from Ethiopia, unfortunately, we haven't been able to do any kind of refunds. So that's why we've been trying to partner with other payment systems within Rwanda and Kenya to do this payment. But one thing I'm very happy about is the mobile banking system through Rwanda, Uganda, and Kenya has allowed us to be able to sell to the Eastern African community. And the second question on hurdles, I think the hurdles are going to be continuing. It's a new system. Regional access will always have those hurdles. One of the biggest things we've been able to understand is that to be able to move large goods. We've been able to move around 300 kg easily, but when we reached 2,000 kg, that was very hard for us.

Size.

Yes, size, exactly. The next is, how do young women or young entrepreneurs break into regional market? I think you just have to go and start. There's nobody stopping us. There's nobody holding us back.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. I come to you, Guguletu, please.

Thanks.

One minute.

Thanks. So the question concerning PEPFAR, I think it's the same one. We're in Southern Africa. It's not operational for us. And then the question concerning access to finance for young women. So speaking with our context, we've been heavily reliant on individual investors. We have not been able to raise any form of financing from financial institutions. So, we've had to really look inwards. In essence, a big part of our investor network for us is the Zimbabwean diaspora community. So, it's people who believe in you who are most likely able to give you money. In terms of what we see moving forward, in terms of access to formal financing, I'm a big proponent, or rather my big audacious goal right now is creating a behavioral data credit bureau. I think we're leaving quite a lot of money on the table for young women within the informal spaces or within the shadow network by not looking at that to say when you are being able to give money, something as small as $1 or $10, how exactly do you behave with that? So I think if we move on to that sector, we'll be able to include more people.

Thank you.

Thank you, Gugu Letu. Tasha, again, One minute max, max, max, max.

Thank you very much. For the payment system, like my friend said, we're in Southern Africa and it's not operational. We rely on mobile money and bank system. Then the question that she asked, how young women can be able to attract financing, more especially in cross-border trade, honestly speaking, for me, in cross-border trade, before you start, I don't advise for you to seek financing because you don't know the waters you're going to dive in. You might crash or you might make it. So it's better you get a small capital like I did and I've scaled. I started with 200 bags, but now I can do 60 tons in a month. So I advise you start small and as you test the waters, then seek for funding. Thank you.

Thank you very much, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen. I just wish I would allow these panelists to continue going for another couple of hours. I cannot. Now, I'm going to invite my colleague, the Director of our Subregional Office, whose team did such an excellent job in organizing this panel, Eunice Kamwendo, to please come in, take one minute, and say a few words. Eunice, please.

Thank you so much, Malangko. I really enjoyed the session, just listening to all of them, and thanks for giving me the opportunity to say a few words. This is where I'm going to start from. I think it was powerful to start with the entrepreneurs because I think that's where we're getting the practical lived experiences where all of us have to coalesce to come in and help unblock some of the challenges that we have. But if you can see also, and I know I'm yet to meet a few of the entrepreneurs, although I've engaged with them before, but all of them, I think all the 3 spoke around issues to— they started for whether it's logistics, financing, or indeed value-added products, in the leather one, they're all there to solve problems. And I think that should be instructive to a lot of our young people to say if you want to go into a business or entrepreneurship, it really is about solving a problem, whatever problem that is, as a starting point. And I think another lesson, a lesson learned from all the 3 of them, which I also found very useful, successful was how they've been successful in falling forward. Again, all of them have spoken about issues of how, you know, they struggled, failed, started again, and so on. And I think what that tells all of us is the tenacity to keep going, but also picking up the lessons that you face along the way to be able to be successful. in a business. And then I think the ending in terms of all of them again just presenting a lot of the challenges which all of us have spoken about is useful. A lot of the challenges, I think they've been able to work around them and solve them. But I think this is a lesson again to us as development partners to see where we do come alongside entrepreneurs to support. It was therefore gratifying to hear whether it was from Gracia Machel Trust, AE Trade, ILO, EU, and the rest of the other panelists that came with practical solutions in this regard. I think that is where we should indeed, including ourselves as the UN and others, we should come in.

If you can finish it, please, Eunice. Thank you.

I am. UN colleagues, including ECA, I think it's to really now look at a high level, at a policy level, on all of these issues, whether it's around dispute resolution, security issues around borders that have been spoken to, PAPS. I mean, we all are celebrating around PAPS, but clearly there are issues there, and I think that's insights into some of the areas that we need to work on. And finally, just again to thank my team, of course, that made— my team and your team and across board in terms of the headquarters colleagues that made this happen. And for— this is not the end, I think a start, and hoping that we're going to be able to continue the conversation. But thank you, all of you, for making yourselves available for this exciting session.

Over—

back to you, Melaku.

Thank you very much, Eunice, and I think tenacity is the word that I want to keep when I think about these 3 young ladies here. And now, a final one, Mr. Miscek Gondo, 1-minute vote of thanks, please.

Thank you very much, Melaku, for driving this session.

And indeed, as alluded to by the youth development model, that young people are anchors for innovation, young people are stakeholders, stockholders, and leaders for transformation.

We have witnessed it in this session where young people have proffered solutions, practical solutions that would drive on the basis of Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement, and also we have heard from the institutions that are supporting the work of young people. Allow me to thank everyone, including our moderator, for today's session.

As alluded to by the former speaker just now, we are going to continue as the Southern Africa Youth Forum, known also as SADC Youth Forum.

We are proud to support young people in terms of driving this.

I would like to acknowledge the co-organizers of this session, the International Labour Organization, ILO, the Southern Africa Youth Forum, SAYouF, and ECA.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. I think I don't have any time, any additional time, any more time to say anything more, but please join me one more time in thanking this amazing panel, and let me also thank our master of ceremony for

Thank you very much, Director Desta, and our esteemed panelists.

Please join me in giving them another round of applause for their very engaging session. We also want to thank all moderators and panelists, as we actually had to cut your time by 10 minutes, and you have done well not to revert to the original time. Some were just 5 minutes short, but at least, uh, you gave us some time. Thank you. Distinguished participants, thank you very much for staying with us. While we may not have achieved Japanese-style precision in our timing, we have done quite well, and we sincerely appreciate your patience and engagement. We now come to our final session before we proceed to the cocktail and knowledge fair. I was told to try to engage you more by saying that the cocktail will be taking place on a terrace with a beautiful view of Addis Ababa, so please, you do not want to miss that. Now, the final session is an impact talk which will be delivered by Miss Marlene Emily Boss, Regional Communications and Advocacy Officer for Africa. This last panel is very enthusiastic. The session will be chaired by Ms. Kauta Mouda, Head of Partnerships and Resources at the Pan-African Youth Union. Ms. Mouda, the floor is yours. The session will run for 25 minutes. Kindly awaiting Ms. Mouda and Ms. Marlene to please mount the platform. All right, we have 25 minutes, please.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

So, Excellencies, dear distinguished guests, good afternoon or good evening. My name is Kautar Moudar, so I'm the Head of Partnerships and Resources at the Pan-African African Youth Union, which is a member-state-led organization or union, and we are the largest convening power mobilizing youth since 1962 in governance, institutionalized participation, capacity building, leadership development, and multi-stakeholder partnerships. So today's session is the last session, but it's going to be brief. and fruitful, inshallah. So it's going to be about the impact talk, so where we're going to explain the Pact for the Future to young people and to all our stakeholders and partners. For that, let me call my dear colleague and sister, Ms. Marlene Emily Bass, who is here joining me, like, in the stage.

Thank you.

Definitely, she will give us more insights about the Pact for the Future. Let me just give you a very brief idea about it before getting into deep insights and information. The Pact for the Future is a global agreement adopted by countries at the Summit of the Future back in 2024. In simple terms, it's a roadmap for creating a world that is more peaceful, fair, inclusive, and definitely sustainable. So this talk will be led by Ms. Marlene, which will walk us through, like, the Pact for the Future to help deepen our understanding, and her presentation will guide us from understanding the Pact's key commitments towards identifying practical actions and pathways for implementation. So Ms. Marlene, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Thank you so much, Kautar. And hello everyone, good afternoon. Hope you can hear me well. Excellencies and colleagues and friends, before I start my moment, I would like to do a small exercise with you. Can I ask the colleagues to start the presentation?

Yes.

Yes.

So I would like you to read this paragraph. Actually, actually, let me help you with this one. We commit to promoting coherent, coordinated, inclusive, and integrated approaches that facilitate the effective implementation of nationally determined priorities through strengthened partnerships, enhanced institutional capacity, whole-of-government and whole-of-society frameworks, while fostering policy coherence, promoting sustainable and resilient— please be honest, how many of you zoned out? Yes. And I don't blame you, I don't blame you at all. I have been working for the United Nations for a few years now, and I have to read these types of paragraphs, these types of texts twice myself. But here is the more important question: what does that text actually mean? What does it mean to a young graduate in Addis Ababa? What does it mean to a woman starting a business in Dar es Salaam? What does it mean to a farmer in Senegal? What does it mean to a student in Benin? Most people wouldn't know, not because they're not smart, not because they don't care, but because we have been very good at writing for conferences, we've been very good at writing for reports, we've been very good at writing for each other, and much less good at writing for the people that those conferences and those reports are actually about. And I want to be clear about something from the start, because this is not a small problem. Because when people cannot access the language of a decision about their lives, they cannot participate in it, they cannot challenge it, they cannot own it, and they certainly cannot act on it. And language is not just a communications issue. It is an inclusion issue, and that is where this story starts. So in September 2024, Kautar already talked about it. World leaders gathered at HQ in New York, UN HQ, for what was called the Summit of the Future. And I'm pretty sure most of you in this room have already heard about this, this summit. The premise was simple. The world is facing many challenges that no country can solve alone. Climate change, debt, conflict, the rise of artificial intelligence, jobs that don't exist yet for a generation entering the workforce, and also a growing crisis of trust in institutions and in each other. So leaders came together and negotiated a new agreement, and it was called the Pact for the Future, a roadmap of sorts, a promise to future generations, a commitment to do better. And the final document was 56 pages long, thousands of words, dozens of commitments, very important commitments about education, about jobs, about the planet, about peace. And when we first looked at it at the UN Development Coordination Office, we found ourselves wondering, how many young people are actually going to read this? Not because they don't care about the future, but because we had once again written a document meant for young people about their future in a language that most young people would never really engage with. And before I'm going to tell you what we did about it, I want to pause on that for a moment, because I do think it matters more than we usually acknowledge, and especially in Africa. By 2050, more than 1 in 4 people on Earth will be African, which means that when we talk about Africa's young people, we're not talking about a niche demographic. We are actually talking about one of the most influential, one of the most consequential generations in human history. And yet we write about their future in a language they cannot easily engage with, and we make decisions about their lives in rooms that they are often not in. The generation we most need to close that implementation gap that we are talking about at this conference, at this forum, is the same generation that we consistently exclude, amongst others, through the language that we use. So this is not just an inclusion problem, as I mentioned before, it's also an implementation problem, because the people we need most to turn ideas into impact are often the very people that we treat