The African Development Bank has strengthened its partnership with Microsoft to scale technical and financial support for young entrepreneurs.
A statement shows that the partnership with the African Development Bank to support Africa’s youth entrepreneurs was part of the bank’s Youth Entrepreneurship Investment Banks (YEIB) initiative.
Through its African Transformation Office, Microsoft would work with the bank to develop youth entrepreneurship ecosystems, creating jobs and dramatically scaling impact in Africa through digital inclusion, the statement said.
With Africa’s young population expected to double in size by 2050 to 830 million, youth employment is likely to be on the rise, according to the statement.
“We believe much can be done to help foster youth entrepreneurship by collaborating with the African Development Bank, driving greater economic inclusion for this key segment of the population, and ultimately building a more prosperous society,” said the General Manager of Microsoft Africa Regional Cluster, Wael Elkabbany.
“Already we’ve seen considerable success partnering together on initiatives such as Coding for Employment, which aims to equip millions of African youth with employable skills, ultimately creating broadscale employment.”
Microsoft will also leverage its partner ecosystem, which covers 54 countries across the continent, to effect action on key technology solutions across four key areas. These include skilling, connectivity, small-to-medium enterprise (SME) digitization, and hardware.
“We’re excited about the potential of this collaboration to magnify the work Microsoft is doing around digital inclusion in Africa. The digital economy plays an important part in giving rise to innovative new ventures that will create sustainable employment for young Africans. The more we can ensure budding young entrepreneurs are given every opportunity to participate in the digital economy, the closer we get to building a more prosperous future for everyone,” concluded Angela Kyerematen-Jimoh, Strategic Partnerships Lead, Microsoft ATO.
