The African Skills Portal for Youth Employment and Entrepreneurship (ASPYEE) is a continental knowledge sharing platform which enables practitioners and policy makers across the African continent to share, collaborate engage with each other. This website provides a platform to promote African-owned, innovative approaches derived from experience from the field and research. Reflecting on African good practice, successes and lessons learnt from the field is fundamental to grow an evidence-based knowledge repository to further the African Union’s agenda on skills and employment.
ASPYEE exists within the context of the growing problem of youth unemployment and underemployment which is a major concern for African Governments. This challenge must be seen in a context where the Continent has the youngest population in the world, with more than 400 million young people aged between the ages of 15 to 35 years. Given this scenario access to quality, relevant and appropriate education and training, decent jobs and self-employment, are critical to promote sustainable socio, political and economy development.
The African Union has key strategies and frameworks aimed at addressing the challenge: these include the Continental Strategy for TVET, African Plan of Action for Youth Empowerment (APAYE), Continental Education Strategy for Africa (CESA), as well as Agenda 2063. These important strategies frame and guide the work of the Skills Initiative for Africa Programme (SIFA) and the ASPYEE.
ASPYEE forms part of the SIFA programme, which is implemented by the African Union Commission (AUC) and African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD). SIFA promotes strategies and processes aimed at enhancing youth skills development, decent employment, and self-employment. The SIFA project further has 3 components; the SIFA Finance Facility, the ATVET For Women component and the SIFA Technical component which includes work on Skills Anticipation, African Continental Qualification Frameworks, Private sector engagement and various dialogue platforms. These components contribute to the content of this website.
