The annual flagship report Africa’s Development Dynamics is a product of the longstanding partnership between the African Union Commission’s Department of Economic Development, Trade, Tourism, Industry and Minerals and the OECD Development Centre. It brings together a team of academic researchers, economists, statisticians and other experts from African and partner countries.
The 2024 edition explores how African stakeholders can increase the continent’s supply of quality skills, in line with current and future demand, to support the creation of jobs and growth in productivity, in line with the vision and aspirations of Agenda 2063. The first chapter addresses how skill supply currently meets demand. It also identifies options for developing newly in-demand skills, in response to the digital and green transitions. The second chapter proposes priority policies to bridge gaps in foundational, soft and technical skills, drawing on lessons from across the continent and beyond. The ensuing chapters focus on the five African regions as defined by the Abuja Treaty: Southern, Central, East, North and West Africa. These chapters offer tailored policy recommendations to develop skills in strategic sectors for each region, including mining, digital technologies, renewable energy and agri-food.
This edition draws on a wide range of data sources and included primary data collection through interviews and surveys. The cut-off date for data used in the report was 21 March 2024, except for the statistical annex, which is revised online on an ongoing basis.
For the second chapter, 20 evaluation reports were analysed to assess the implementation of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) projects in Africa. This exercise sought to explain factors that enable or hinder TVET project performance. The analysed reports were selected from a database of 225 TVET evaluations, compiled from 2 publicly available sources: the online repository of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and the Evaluation Resource Centre (DEReC) of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC). The former gathers project reports led by the German Cooperation Agency; the latter collects evaluation reports from the development agencies of the 32 DAC members, including Germany, and partners such as the African Development Bank. Additionally, the authors conducted 3 semi-structured interviews with TVET practitioners in Africa-based international organisations to evaluate success factors for and barriers to TVET project implementation. The interviews took place from October to December 2023.
The North Africa chapter provides a comprehensive overview of findings derived from a qualitative survey conducted in January 2024 in the renewable energy sector. Based on semi-structured interviews, the survey asked questions about skills in renewable energy. The study included 18 participants who were engaged in renewable energy activities or used such energy sources. The participants came from different countries in North Africa and represented the public sector, business associations, private enterprises and universities.
The statistical annex contains the latest economic, social and institutional indicators across African countries for which data are comparable. A list of data tables appears in the last pages of the report. The data are presented by country, region, regional economic community and relevant country groupings (e.g. resource endowment, levels of income, socio-economic development and fragility, ocean access, and language). The annex provides comparisons between Africa and different world regions as well as other relevant benchmarks. These data aim to inform decision-makers, advisors, business analysts, private investors, journalists, non-governmental organisations and citizens around the globe who are interested in the development trajectories of African countries.
The full report is published in English, French and Portuguese. Additional figures and tables and the statistical annex are available on the websites of the African Union and the OECD Development Centre.