By Robert Nayeja

Dar es Salaam, June 25, Mana: Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs Sosten Gwengwe says, African Human Capital Heads of state summit taking place in Tanzania will accelerate economic opportunities among the youth in Malawi.

Gwendwe made the remarks on Monday in Dar ES Salaam Tanzania, where the continental Summit is taking place.

The Malawi leader, President Dr Lazarus MacCarthy Chakwera is expected to attend the summit which will be held from 25th to 26th July, 2023 at the Julius Nyerere International Convention Centre

He said World Bank being one of the big partners in development has organized the summit to look at issues of Human Capital development and how it can assist in the development of people in Africa including Malawi.

“This Summit will foster technical discussion and also provide a platform where, experiences will be shared on human capital. As a nation we will benefit a lot as we will be able to explore how best we should reach out to the young generation with economic opportunities,” said Gwengwe

Gwengwe added that the two-day summit will bring a bottom-up demand to human capital prioritization and investments in African countries by discussing challenges and bottlenecks to human capital accumulation along with identification of priorities and drivers of growth.

Gwengwe said the President has been invited to speak on demographic dividend, with a consideration that Malawi has a young population which needs special attention in order to hasten creation of economic opportunities such as jobs and skills development.

The Africa Human Capital Heads of State Summit comes in response to engagements with government focal points on the need to draw attention to the role of human capital in economic growth.

 The (JNICC) summit will be held under the theme, “linking investments in human capital to economic growth and harnessing the demographic dividend, by addressing learning poverty and the skills gap for youth and women.

Learning poverty is the share of children unable to read and understand a simple text by the age of 10, estimated to be 89% in Africa.