As the Skills Gap Widens and Learning Crisis Looms, How Close Are We to Achieving SDG 4?

In 2015, the United Nations set an ambitious new global goal, Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4), to ensure relevant, inclusive, and quality education for all youth by 2030. But with just seven years left on the agenda, SDG 4 feels further from reach.

*SDG 4 covers relevant learning that equips young people with the skills for employment, decent jobs, and entrepreneurship*

Prior to the pandemic, nearly 90 million youth were out of school across Sub-Saharan Africa. Many more young people graduated ill-equipped to build their livelihoods in a complex 21st-century economy with poor employment prospects. If that’s where we were almost three years ago, then where are we now?

The pandemic has further exacerbated learning inequalities and reduced economic opportunity for young people. Roughly 40% of children across Eastern and Southern Africa are not in school, with an additional 32 million youth out of school due to COVID-19. Youth are also weathering severe socioeconomic consequences of the pandemic, which studies show has hurt young people more than any other age group — the skills deficit has deepened, youth unemployment has increased, and the number of young people not in any education, employment, or training program has grown.

It is estimated that 10 to 12 million young people enter the job market each year in Africa, with only 3 million formal jobs available. Given the absence of formal jobs, roughly 85% of Africa’s youth will build their livelihoods within the informal economy. For young women, the path to economic prosperity is all the more challenging, as they face added barriers to accessing education and quality skill-building experiences, pursuing economic opportunity, and earning equal wages.

Preparing Africa’s growing youth demographic — which will make up one-third of the global youth labor force by 2030 — has never been more critical than it is today.

Prior to the pandemic, the annual financing gap to achieve SDG 4 in low- and lower-middle-income countries by 2030 stood at approximately US $148 billion. Today, this figure has grown by an additional US $30 - $45 billion. SDG 4 remains an achievable but elusive goal, and policymakers, educationalists, philanthropists, and civil society must act swiftly to avoid an unprecedented learning crisis. Migration, instability, and poverty are intricately linked with economic opportunity — and the cost of delayed action will far surpass the investment needed to expand opportunity for young people,

Repairing the broken promise of SDG 4 calls for an urgency uncharacteristic of the education sector and innovative approaches to reimagining education. The current moment requires transformational strategies, such as systems-wide efforts to improve the quality of education at scale, coupled with accessible alternative education-to-employment pathways that can prepare the region’s hardest-to-reach youth for today’s labor market.

Through collective and concerted action, we can chart a new path for education, ensuring that young people receive quality learning experiences that enable them to build and lead fulfilling lives. Should we fail to rise to the occasion, we risk walking back years of educational and economic progress — and leaving the enormous potential of Africa’s young people untapped.

"We will not end this crisis by simply doing more of the same faster or better. Now is the time to transform education systems. So, dear world leaders, your people, the world’s young people and future generations are calling on you to act with vision and purpose."

- UN Secretary-General António Guterres

In 2015, the United Nations set an ambitious new global goal, Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4), to ensure relevant, inclusive, and quality education for all youth by 2030. But with just seven years left on the agenda, SDG 4 feels further from reach.

Preparing Africa’s growing youth demographic — which will make up one-third of the global youth labor force by 2030 — has never been more critical than it is today.

"We will not end this crisis by simply doing more of the same faster or better. Now is the time to transform education systems. So, dear world leaders, your people, the world’s young people and future generations are calling on you to act with vision and purpose."

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