Skills for jobs in Sub-Saharan Africa: An urgent, pressing agenda Omar AriasDavid EvansIndhira Santos May 11, 2026 This page in: English Français Swahili © 2026 The World Bank Group,

https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/africacan/skills-for-jobs-in-sub-saharan-africa-an-urgent-pressing-agenda More than one in five youth across Africa are neither in education nor working. Medium and large firms continue to point to an inadequately skilled workforce as a constraint to productivity. Only a small fraction of children are able to read and understand a simple sentence by age ten, a building block and indicator of children’s skills trajectory. In the face of these skills challenges, back in 2019, we published The Skills Balancing Act in Sub-Saharan Africa: Investing in Skills for Productivity, Inclusivity, and Adaptability. We highlighted two balancing acts that policy makers have to reckon with when investing in skills. First, the tension between skills for economywide productivity gains and skills for inclusion of the most vulnerable. Second, countries must balance between investing in foundational skills (both cognitive and socio-emotional) and technical or job-specific skills. © 2026 The World Bank Group,