Speaking on Thursday in Lagos at the unveiling of a report titled, ‘Future Work Africa: Designing Africa’s future of work,’ he explained that the challenges in Africa were also the same as global challenges.
The report, ‘Future Work Africa,’ unveils the opportunities in Africa’s evolving economy and provides insights to young people across the continent to take up skills relevant to the future of work.
Stevens said, “It is something I say often. I mean to say that the challenges that we face as a world are global in nature, whether it be the impacts of climate change and how we mitigate those impacts, whether it be global food insecurity, or backsliding in democracy and the challenges that are faced around the world, and we need to work together we need to recognise that those are global challenges and recognise that there are going to be African solutions and American solutions, and we need to bring them together and collaborate.
“It is a great term that came up today in the conference, collaborate on those issues and work together. It’s why the United States has committed to getting Africa a seat at the G20, which we did this last year.
“It is why we are working so hard on ensuring that there are African voices in the UN Security Council to ensure that Africans are coming and participating in global fora because we need to be working together to address the challenges we face.”
He added that the private sector should be given opportunities to invest and do business easily, saying this would help grow and develop Africa.
“I am a huge believer in the power of the private sector. And I think as we unlock that potential by creating opportunities and ensuring that investment can flow and that companies can do business here easily, improve the ease of doing business and the ease of investing, you’re going to see more and more people who recognise incredible resource of the Nigerian people coming here and trying to tap into that resource which creates value here in this market. I think, the more we can work together the better we will be a speaking about Africa,” he added.
A Co-founder, Future Work Africa, Mr Mayowa Tijani, said he and two Nigerians, Uche Pedro and Azeez Salawu, set up Future Work Africa.
Tijani added, “The project, born at a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Goalkeepers accelerator in 2022, sought to understand the jobs of the future, and the skills needed by young people in Africa to effectively match those jobs.
“We commissioned this research to better understand the needs of the continent, the skills we can export to the world, and how to adapt to a rapidly changing future.”