BY CHIKA OKEKE, Abuja
The GreenWorks for Africa Forum has sought the integration of blended finance, green bonds, Extended Producer Responsibility ,EPR, funds, carbon finance, biodiversity credits, Village Savings and Loan Associations ,VSLAs, and tax incentives to unlock Africa's sustainable job markets.
Blended finance is the use of public or philanthropic funds to increase investment in sustainable development projects.
This was highlighted in a report titled: 'African Green Jobs and Skills Toolkit', conducted by GreenWorks for Africa Forum, an initiative of Jacobs Ladder Africa, with active participation of FSD-Africa, AGRA, GIZ-Kenya and Center for Global Development ,CGD.
Jacob’s Ladder Africa, JLA, is a Pan-African catalytic integrator, which supports the development and scaling of green enterprises that create employment, deliver climate solutions, and strengthen economic resilience.
In partnership with the governments, investors, and local ecosystems, JLA empowers young entrepreneurs to translate their skills and innovation into viable businesses and sustainable livelihoods across countries and sectors.
The African Green Jobs and Skills Toolkit provides a practical, Africa-centred resource for moving from green growth ambition to job creation. It connects policy, finance, technology, markets, skills, inclusion and accountability into one coherent framework, helping stakeholders design programmes that are implementable, investable and linked to real employment outcomes.
It identified weak employer involvement in curriculum design, limited work-based learning and apprenticeships, few modular certifications, low participation of women, limited recognition of informal learning pathways, and a persistent disconnect between training completion and actual employment as the major challenges in the continent's job market.
The report added: "Informal workers are already active in waste recovery, smallholder farming, transport, construction, and community enterprises but the challenge is to recognise, protect, skill, finance, and integrate them in a dignified and just manner within their contexts.
"Youth and women are workers, technicians, innovators, enterprise owners, cooperative leaders, and community mobilisers and should not be viewed only as beneficiaries.
"Every intervention should demonstrate explicitly how they access jobs, finance, land, training, leadership, and markets.
"The report assists stakeholders to identify where employment can be created, how excluded groups can participate, which systems need to change and what must be tracked to ensure that Africa’s green transition delivers livelihoods, enterprise growth and community benefit alongside climate and environmental outcomes."
To strengthen the Toolkit’s practical value, the forum requested that users should apply a concise set of implementation inputs that connect each green growth opportunity to real jobs, skills, finance, inclusion and measurable outcomes.
The inputs help ensure that sector analysis leads to investable actions, accountable delivery and inclusive employment outcomes.
It also recommended that policy can create the conditions for investment, while investment can stimulate demand, enterprise growth and employment.
"These outcomes depend on effective implementation, viable markets, appropriate skills and worker protection, and deliberate mechanisms to ensure that communities benefit. Progress across each of these areas should be tracked," the report added.
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