Rants & Real Talk

Africa Is Not a Job Market—It’s a Job Creator

By 2100, nearly half the world's population will be African. This op-ed explores how Africa's youth, empowered by digital health innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship, can transform the continent into a global engine of job creation and health equity—one startup at a time.

editor-in-chief

Jun 18, 2025 - 18:46

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Africa Is Not a Job Market—It’s a Job Creator

By 2100, 4 in 10 people on Earth will be African. What we invent now will shape the global future.

“Until the lion learns to write, every story will glorify the hunter.” — African Proverb

Introduction: The Ticking Clock of Opportunity

Africa’s youth bulge is not just a statistic. It’s a seismic shift in global demographics, a groundswell of possibility that, if harnessed, could redefine not just Africa, but the entire planet. According to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (2022), Africa’s population is expected to reach 4.3 billion by 2100, with over 60% under the age of 25. The median age will hover around 19. That means more students, more dreamers, more hustlers—and either a massive engine for prosperity or a time bomb of unemployment.

This is not a future to prepare for. This is a future that is already knocking at our doorsteps. Every school graduation, every boda boda ride, every mobile app launched by a teen in a township adds another node to this rising network of untapped human potential.

Problem Framing: Degrees Without Direction

Across the continent, youth emerge from universities brimming with ambition, only to find there are no seats at the table. In Kenya, over 500,000 graduates join the labor market annually, but less than 100,000 formal jobs are created (Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, 2023). It’s the same story in Nigeria, Ghana, and South Africa.

So the question isn’t just: Where are the jobs? The real question is: Why are we still waiting for jobs instead of building them? Why are we treating our diplomas like golden tickets to shrinking opportunities when they should be licenses to create new economies?

The most powerful untapped force on this continent is not oil, not gold, not cobalt—it is the creative, enterprising, tech-savvy, underemployed African youth.

Digital Health as the Launchpad

Health is one of the fastest-growing sectors in Africa. Combine that with mobile technology, and you get a unique recipe for innovation. Digital health is not just about apps or AI diagnostics. It's about reimagining access, equity, delivery, and dignity in how Africans experience care.

Case Study 1: mPharma (Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya)

Founded by Gregory Rockson, mPharma aggregates pharmacies into one digital inventory network to prevent stockouts, reduce drug costs, and ensure quality. Today, it operates in 10+ countries and serves over 2 million people.

"We’re solving a supply chain problem, not just a health problem," says Rockson.

Lesson for youth: You don’t have to be a doctor to solve health problems. Logistics, data, and inventory management are just as critical. Problems in health aren’t always clinical; they are systemic—and that means opportunity.

Source: https://mpharma.com

Case Study 2: Ubenwa (Nigeria)

Ubenwa developed an AI-powered app that detects birth asphyxia in newborns by analyzing their cries. It’s trained on infant audio recordings, delivering fast diagnostics to places with no specialists.

Lesson: Use what you have (in this case, sound) to innovate in what you don’t (doctors). When the right minds meet the right pain points, ingenuity flows.

Source: https://ubenwa.ai

Case Study 3: Zipline (Rwanda, Ghana)

While Silicon Valley debated drone ethics, Rwanda and Ghana launched a nationwide drone medicine delivery service. Zipline now delivers vaccines, blood, and medications to remote clinics within minutes.

Lesson: African countries can leapfrog. Don’t wait for roads—build runways. Innovation doesn’t have to mimic Western models. It can be radically native.

Source: https://flyzipline.com

The Role of Mindset: From Hustler to Builder

Too many African youths are raised to see entrepreneurship as a last resort—a Plan B when employment fails. But this narrative is outdated. In the 21st century, the greatest value comes not from labor, but from problem-solving.

“Don’t give a man a fish, and don’t just teach him to fish. Help him design a better net and own the riverbank.”

The shift from survivalist hustle to sustainable enterprise begins in how we tell our stories, frame our challenges, and train our youth. Entrepreneurs aren’t lone wolves—they are systems thinkers, team builders, culture shapers.

Building Entrepreneurial Culture in Africa:

Incentivize Local Innovation: Governments must create tax breaks for startups solving local problems, not just importing foreign tech.
Integrate Innovation into Education: Why wait until university? Let high schoolers build health apps, design water filters, or run school health clubs. Make entrepreneurship an academic discipline.
Fund Idea-Stage Startups: Most grants in Africa go to later-stage ventures. We need funding that backs ideas, not just proven traction. Build bridges, not barriers, to experimentation.
Promote Failure as Feedback: Culturally, we must normalize pivots, relaunches, and graceful failures. As the proverb says, “He who does not risk never gets to drink palm wine.”

Untapped Opportunities in Digital Health

1. Feature Phone Health Platforms

Only 25% of sub-Saharan Africans use smartphones regularly (GSMA, 2023). Tools like USSD, SMS-based triage, and voice helplines are goldmines. Think WhatsApp meets Red Cross.

2. Mental Health for Youth

WHO reports that Africa has the lowest mental health provider ratio in the world. AI chatbots, peer networks, and mobile therapy platforms can fill the gap. Depression and anxiety are economic issues too.

3. Cultural UX in Health Apps

Most digital tools are copy-pasted from the West. African youth must design interfaces in local languages, using symbols, humor, and narratives that resonate. Picture a reproductive health app narrated by your grandmother—trust goes up, stigma goes down.

4. Gamification of Health Education

Apps like TTC Mobile in Nigeria are using storytelling, WhatsApp quizzes, and edutainment to engage youth in sexual health and COVID-19 info. TikTok and Telegram are new frontiers of public health.

5. Decentralized Diagnostics

AI tools like Peek Vision use smartphones to perform eye tests in remote areas. Combine that with a youth-led training model, and you have a national screening system. Eyesight today, blockchain labs tomorrow.

Policy and Ecosystem Enablers

Africa cannot innovate in a vacuum. Here’s what we need:

Public-private partnerships (PPPs) that empower local innovators, not just bring in foreign contractors.
Regulatory sandboxes for health startups to test without getting buried in red tape.
Continental knowledge exchanges like the Africa CDC Innovation Network.
Gender-inclusive funding: Only 2% of VC funding goes to female founders in Africa. Let’s not leave half the brainpower behind. Women birth nations—surely, they can build companies.

From Hackathons to Habits

“Africa doesn’t need more hackathons. It needs follow-through.”

Let’s stop celebrating prototypes and start building pipelines. Let’s move from pitching to piloting. Let’s turn innovation from an event into an everyday muscle.

From university dorms to refugee camps, we must embed iterative design, inclusive co-creation, and evidence-based scaling into how we solve.

The Village Is the Laboratory

In Africa, innovation doesn’t need whiteboards or bean bags. It happens when a nurse tracks child vaccinations using WhatsApp, or when a boda boda rider becomes the delivery arm of a teleclinic. It’s in informal markets, school clubs, mothers’ unions, and the rhythms of daily life.