African Forum on Youth Skills & Enterprise in the Digital Age – Rabat, Morocco

Deadline: September 4, 2017

Applications are open for 2017 African Forum on Youth Skills & Enterprise in the Digital Age taking place 15-16 November in Rabat, Kingdom of Morocco. The program aims to develop the leadership and digital skills of the youth and equip them with the necessary knowledge, tools and know-how to design marketable products and services and, therefore, create sustainable enterprises and generate employment.

The African Forum on Youth Skills & Enterprise in the Digital Age is structured to include the following: Exhibition and Knowledge Fair, CESA-ICT in Education Cluster Meeting, Ministerial Forum and Side Events. Interested participants are invites to submit proposals for presentation at the Forum, which will bring together senior policymakers, government administration senior officials, development partners, private sector, representatives of African youth, young entrepreneurs, civil society and experts to showcase, share and discuss comprehensive and innovative TVSD/TVET models and programmes.

Expected Outcomes

1. Developing a shared and commanding understanding of how digital technologies can be leveraged for skilling the youth and empowering them to create entreprise in the digital era and lead the socio-economic transformation of their communities.
2. Sharing knowledge, experiences, good practices and lessons learnt to better inform policies and programmes aiming at skilling the youth and entreprise creation in the digital age.
3. Raising awareness on the necessity to build strong skill sets and volunteer political commitment to explore innovative approches for leveraging digital technologies for youth skilling and entreprise creation.
4. Promoting youth digital skills and entreprise high level policy dialogue platform and network that includes the public sector (ministries, agencies and institutions in charge of vocational education and youth, Regional Economic Communities – RECs); development cooperation agencies and international organizations; private sector; civil society and youth organizations. Such a policy platform and network are necessary for the development of the ecosystem that will foster partnerships to advance policy and strategy development and implementation.
5. Sharing Youth’s digital skills development and entreprise creation strategies to help address youth unemployment and bridging the skills gap within Africa by identifying game-changing experiences and lessons learnt.
6. Creating a platform for the promotion of the comptetivieness and attractiveness of TVET sectors across Africa by identifying innovative and creative skills through an “African creative skills competition”.

Eligibility

Around 100-120 participants are expected to attend the Forum:

• Government ministers in charge of Education, TVET, youth and employment;
• Representatives of leading international, regional organizations, private sector and civil society (African youth and young entrepreneurs);
• Youth organizations;
• TVET centres;
• Experts.

Eligible Countries: Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cape Verde, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the, Cote d’Ivorie, Djibouti, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

Submission Guidelines

Please find here below, criteria guiding the Forum Programme Committee when reviewing proposals for presentations during the technical sessions and selecting presentations:

• Title of the presentation
• Role of the presenter in the project
• Region covered by the programme/project
• Alignment to the general theme and sessions
• Explanation concerning what is innovative in the programme/project
• Relevance in terms of development issue/challenge addressed by the programme/project
• Alignment to 2030 Global Agenda / Africa’s Agenda 2063 / AUC strategies / national policies and or other strategies
• Description of the MEL component of the programme/project
• Explanation on how the programme/project’s impact was measured
• Description of the lessons learned and their relevance in terms of informing policy / programmes

During every technical session, which lasts 90 minutes, 4 presentations of 15 min each will be made.

How to Submit

Proposals for presentations can be made by email at [email protected].

• Submission of presentation proposals – deadline: 4^th September 2017
• Selected applicants notified: 28^th September 2017
• Final Presentations due: 8^th  October 2017

For more information, visit African Forum on Youth Skills & Enterprise in the Digital Age