A statement from the ECA, on Sunday, quoted Mr Jean-Paul Adam, Director, Technology, Climate Change and Natural Resources Management at the commission as making the call at a side event to the ongoing 53rd session of the ECA Conference of Ministers.

The event was tagged “Driving Africa’s Industrialisation Agenda by Investing in Youth’s Digital Innovations Post COVID-19″.

In his keynote address, Adam noted that young entrepreneurs could propel Africa’s industrialisation, emphasising that the youths were a critical part of recovery and reset in response to the pandemic.

“We need to reset our development framework for Africa to succeed and digitalisation will play a key role in this,” he stressed.

The director also explained that the reset was about reconsidering sustainable development for Africa and tapping the energy of young people to build forward better.

“Young people are key agents of that reset, the digital space should be one of empowerment and not restriction.”  Adam said.

He further said Africa was impacted more than other regions in the context of COVID-19 and climate change, due to its vulnerability, lack of safety nets and minimal fiscal space to adequately respond to such issues.

“We need to respond. We need to address the immediate impact we are facing in terms of lost jobs, in terms of economic opportunities.

”These  have been disrupted and we also need to recover from the initial impacts of the crisis of this unprecedented magnitude.”  he said.

Adam disclosed that 110 million young people entered the job market in the last 10 years, but only 37 million wage paying jobs were created.

He said the pandemic, however, had presented opportunities for a reset and green recovery for Africa around sustainable energy access for more than 590 million people, without access to electricity.

Furthermore, Adam stressed that digital services were also an opportunity to move Africa’s commerce into the digital space.

He said consideration should be given to  specific digital skills which should be invested in and upgrading digital infrastructure like the internet, enhancing digital services, digital identities, and online payment systems.

“We have to ensure access to markets for young people,” he said.

He, however, added that young entrepreneurs must have access to finance and the procurement space.

“E-commerce has emerged as a trade facilitator and the AfCFTA must be leveraged to facilitate trade for young people.

“If we empower young people to enter the digital space and create their own business space, we can expect that every young person will probably create one other job for another person.

“This is the promise that we have for that reset in reviewing the development architecture we believe is necessary for the empowerment of young people and green recovery for Africa.” Adam said.