Speaking on Green Entrepreneurship and Skills at the African Youth Conference 2025

On 12 September 2025 I spoke at the side event "Advancing Green Entrepreneurship and Skills for Africa's Youth-Driven Just Transition", organised by the United Youth Initiative for Africa (UNIYIA) at the African Youth Conference on Natural Resources and Environmental Governance in Accra.

The conference

The African Youth Conference (AYC 2025) was hosted by the Strategic Youth Network for Development (SYND Ghana) from 11 to 13 September 2025 at La Palm Royal Beach Hotel, Accra, under the theme "Transforming Africa's Natural Resource Governance through Youth-Led Solutions". It brought together more than 2,000 young leaders, policymakers, innovators and development partners for plenary panels, side events and breakout sessions on climate finance, energy transition, green entrepreneurship and accountability in natural resource management.

The side event

The UNIYIA side event took place on the second day of the conference, from 12:30 to 1:30 pm. As its title suggests, it focused on the role of young Africans in the just transition as entrepreneurs and skilled workers, and on the skills and enterprise support that role requires.

The seven-member panel brought together practitioners from different parts of the green economy:

• Cordie Aziz Nash, Executive Director and Founder, Environment360;
• Monica B. Tampuri, Managing Director, BANYANI;
• Ignatius Awutey, Lead Strategist, Hillbiz Consulting;
• Noah Bugre, General Manager, UNIYIA;
• Sandra Tommy Wasara, Lead Communications and Fashion Facilitator, Urban Stitches;
• Aishetu Abdul-Razak, Co-founder, KaneaTech; and
• myself.

Why the topic matters

Africa's transition to low-carbon economies will create new enterprises and new jobs in energy, mobility, waste and circular production. Whether young people benefit depends on practical things: access to finance for early-stage green businesses, training that matches the skills employers and markets need, and policies that open public and donor programmes to youth-led enterprises. Side events such as this one bring those who build green businesses into the same room as those who set the rules for them.

Acknowledgements

I thank UNIYIA for organising the side event, SYND Ghana for hosting the conference, my fellow panellists, and the participants who joined the session.

Photographs: African Youth Conference 2025 official photography. The images show the conference programme; they are not of the side event itself.