Rockefeller, Dalberg move against job crisis
http://www.hrlnews.com/2019/05/rockefeller-dalberg-move-against-job.html
Rockefeller Foundation has decided to intervene in Africa’s
unemployment challenge and therefore announced a meeting of stakeholders
to brainstorm on how to alleviate the crisis.
The Foundation, a world-renowned charity, is facilitating the meeting
with Dalberg Group, an organisation that provides strategic, policy,
and investment advice to the leadership of key global institutions.
They are to focus on advancing initiatives that recognize the role of
data science in addressing systemic challenges linked to unemployment
and the future of work in Africa.
Africa is home to the world’s youngest and fastest-growing population
with projections of more than 375 million young people in the job
market by 2030.
Dalberg and the Rockefeller Foundation have found that within a few
decades, this demographic dividend will increase the size of Africa’s
workforce to more than a billion people, making it the largest in the
world.
However, the gap between the number of work seekers and the number of
jobs available today is significant and requires deeper, more
integrated solutions. Both Dalberg and the Foundation agree that the
skills required in today’s labor market may not be the skills required
tomorrow.
“At the same time, the proliferation of data, advances in data
science and technological innovation offer tremendous opportunity.
Across the continent, initiatives focused on building digital skills,
jobs, and industries of the future are well underway,” the two
organisations said in a joint statement.
As a way to capitalize on the rich innovation in data science across
the continent, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Dalberg Group hosted
the ‘Data Science for Improved Labor Markets in Africa’ event in Kigali,
Rwanda, this May.
The event preceded another high profile event dubbed the ‘Transform
Africa Summit’, which brings together leading policy makers and industry
actors from across the continent and will focus on ‘boosting Africa’s
Digital Economy’.
“Greater access to data and advancements in data science hold the
potential to allow to more deeply understand the systemic challenges
that drive unemployment.
However, translating these advancements into viable solutions and
positive impact at scale requires collaboration at the intersection of
technologists, policy makers, industry, and civil society,” said Robin
Miller, Partner and Global Digital Lead at Dalberg Advisors.
The Data Science for Labor Markets event brought together 27
policy-makers, data scientists, funders, researchers, and industry
actors from more than a dozen countries in order to build and enhance
existing data science initiatives that tackle the deep systematic labor
market challenges in Africa.
“Creating, testing, and integrating impactful data-driven solutions
requires collaboration across government, the private sector, and civil
society.
“We believe that data and technology hold the key to solving the
world’s most challenging issues, including those facing Africa’s labor
market,” explained Zia Khan, Vice President of Innovation at The
Rockefeller Foundation.’’