IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/hdgewp/203090.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Strategies for Enhancing Digital Skills among Africa’s NEET Youth

Author

Listed:
  • Gala, Priyal Mukesh
  • Namit, Kabira
  • Kidwai, Huma

Abstract

This background paper examines the critical issue of how to enhance digital skills among youth who are not in employment, education, or training (NEET) in Africa to prevent approximately 72 million young people (two-thirds of whom are young women) from being marginalized in a global economy rapidly undergoing a digital transformation. First, it evaluates the current digital proficiency of the region’s NEET population and identifies substantial structural barriers that contribute to widening digital disparities. Subsequently, the paper explores the transformative potential of digital skills in boosting employability, fostering entrepreneurship, and enabling broader participation in socioeconomic life. Crucially, it then proposes scalable, cost-effective strategies, including public-private partnerships, mobile-first education initiatives, and community-based training programs. These approaches are assessed for their practicality (cost effectiveness and scalability) and for their potential to equip Africa’s NEET youth with the necessary digital competencies. If adopted at scale, these competencies can enable young people to join the economic mainstream and help translate Africa’s demographic potential into widespread social and economic gains.

Suggested Citation

  • Gala, Priyal Mukesh & Namit, Kabira & Kidwai, Huma, 2025. "Strategies for Enhancing Digital Skills among Africa’s NEET Youth," Education Working Papers 203090, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:hdgewp:203090
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099646207092516899/pdf/IDU-73ec9567-ceb7-4efc-92ef-0364caff309e.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Raul Ramos, 2019. "Migration aspirations among youth in the Middle East and North Africa region," Journal of Geographical Systems, Springer, vol. 21(4), pages 487-507, December.
    2. Gregg, Paul, 2001. "The Impact of Youth Unemployment on Adult Unemployment in the NCDS," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(475), pages 626-653, November.
    3. Gregg, Paul & Tominey, Emma, 2005. "The wage scar from male youth unemployment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 487-509, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dickson, Matt & Donnelly, Michael & Kameshwara, Kalyan Kumar & Lazetic, Predrag, 2024. "The Scarring Effect of Graduate Underemployment: Evidence from the UK," IZA Discussion Papers 17364, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Matteo Picchio & Stefano Staffolani, 2019. "Does apprenticeship improve job opportunities? A regression discontinuity approach," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 56(1), pages 23-60, January.
    3. Cockx, Bart & Ghirelli, Corinna, 2016. "Scars of recessions in a rigid labor market," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 162-176.
    4. Stefan Eriksson & Dan-Olof Rooth, 2014. "Do Employers Use Unemployment as a Sorting Criterion When Hiring? Evidence from a Field Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(3), pages 1014-1039, March.
    5. Bart Cockx & Matteo Picchio, 2013. "Scarring effects of remaining unemployed for long-term unemployed school-leavers," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 176(4), pages 951-980, October.
    6. Sandra M. Leitner, 2022. "A skill‐specific dynamic labour supply and labour demand framework: A scenario analysis for the Western Balkan countries to 2030," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 36(4), pages 471-504, December.
    7. Möller Joachim & Umkehrer Matthias, 2015. "Are there Long-Term Earnings Scars from Youth Unemployment in Germany?," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 235(4-5), pages 474-498, August.
    8. Mattia Filomena, 2024. "Unemployment Scarring Effects: An Overview and Meta-analysis of Empirical Studies," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 10(2), pages 459-518, July.
    9. Marios Michaelides & Peter Mueser & Jeffrey Smith, 2019. "Youth Unemployment and U.S. Job Search Assistance Policy during the Great Recession," University of Cyprus Working Papers in Economics 13-2019, University of Cyprus Department of Economics.
    10. Yekaterina Chzhen & Dominic Richardson, 2014. "Young People (not) in the Labour Market in Rich Countries during the Great Recession," Papers inwopa726, Innocenti Working Papers.
    11. Egebark, Johan & Kaunitz, Niklas, 2018. "Payroll taxes and youth labor demand," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 163-177.
    12. Marco Caliendo & Ricarda Schmidl, 2016. "Youth unemployment and active labor market policies in Europe," IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 5(1), pages 1-30, December.
    13. Filomena, Mattia & Picchio, Matteo, 2023. "You'll never walk alone: Unemployment, social networks and leisure activities," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1346, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    14. Kenneth Snellman, 2006. "The long-term effects of the depression on the labour market outcomes for nurses," Working Papers 220, Työn ja talouden tutkimus LABORE, The Labour Institute for Economic Research LABORE.
    15. Corinna.Ghirelli, 2014. "The scarring effect of early non-employment," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 14/895, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    16. Eva O. Arceo-Gómez & Raymundo M. Campos-Vázquez, 2011. "¿Quiénes son los NiNis en México?," Working Papers DTE 524, CIDE, División de Economía.
    17. Major, Lee Elliott & Eyles, Andrew & Machin, Stephen, 2021. "Unequal learning and labour market losses in the crisis: consequences for social mobility," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 114413, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. Jake Anders & Andy Dickerson & Paul Gregg & Lindsey Macmillan, 2020. "Unemployment: The Coming Storm, Who Gets Hit, Who Gets Hurt, and Policy Remedies," CEPEO Working Paper Series 20-12, UCL Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities, revised Jul 2020.
    19. Valerie Egdell  & Vanessa Beck, 2020. "A Capability Approach to Understand the Scarring Effects of Unemployment and Job Insecurity: Developing the Research Agenda," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 34(5), pages 937-948, October.
    20. Mattia Filomena, 2021. "Unemployment Scarring Effects: A Symposium On Empirical Literature," Working Papers 453, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wbk:hdgewp:203090. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Raiden C. Dillard (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.