Africa Heads of State Human Capital Summit underway in Dar es Salaam

Addis Ababa, July 25, 2023 (FBC) – The Africa Heads of State Human Capital Summit has kicked off in Dar es Salaam on Tuesday as delegates from across the continent gather in Tanzania’s commercial capital to reiterate the need to invest in the people to ensure Africa’s prosperity.

Taking place from July 25 to July 26, the summit is being held under the theme ‘Accelerating Africa’s Economic Growth: Boosting Youth Productivity by Improving Learning and Skills.’

It comes in response to engagements with government focal points on the need to draw attention to the role of human capital in economic growth and elevate the discussion on the importance of investing in people.

Several former and serving African leaders arrived in Dar es Salaam Monday for the summit, including former First Lady of Mozambique Graca Machel and the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia, Demeke Mekonnen.

They are among at least 1,200 delegates from 30 African countries expected to park the Julius Nyerere International Convention Centre (JNICC) from Tuesday to Wednesday to deliberate, share the latest knowledge on human capital, and conclude with concrete commitments and next steps from the participating Heads of State.

On the other hand, addressing the Youth Side Event of the Summit at Hyatt Regency yesterday, Nathan Belete, World Bank Country Director, defined human capital as the health, knowledge, and skills people accumulate over their lifetimes.

“It’s what determines a person’s productivity and earnings, and often, it’s the only asset poor people have,” Mr Belete said. “Human capital trajectories are set before a child is born, and human capital is rapidly accumulated during childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. Breaking the cycle of intergenerational inequality requires significant investments in human capital from the earliest age.”

Highlighting the essence of the summit, Belete said by 2075, one-third of the world’s population—and the working-age population—will be African, describing the continent as the only region in the world where the workforce will continue to grow in the coming decades – with the working-age population (now at just over 600 million, as of 2020) expected to grow by 450 million by 2035 and reach 1.5 billion people by 2075.

The Summit will bring focus and attention at the highest level to the importance of investing in people as a core driver of productivity, resilience, and growth; raise awareness of the potential opportunities from the changing demographics in the region; underscore the urgent need to focus on learning and skills as key productivity drivers that will generate the demographic dividend and position human capital development as every sector’s priority,” he said.

We anticipate that the Summit will also elicit commitments to two to three tangible financial and policy measures prioritising investments in people from each participating country and will reinforce ownership of the human capital agenda by the region as one of the priority areas of sustainable development under the Agenda 2063 of the African Union,” Mr Belete explained, adding: “The Summit is also designed to foster enhanced regional and donor cooperation on sustainable human capital development, particularly on learning outcomes and skills.”