Tackling Africa's
Youth Unemployment
Through Research & Innovation
The ARUA Centre of Excellence for Unemployment & Skills Development (ARUA-USD, CoE) is hosted at the University of Lagos — the Leader and Hub in Africa for research in Skills Development and Sustainable Entrepreneurship to combat the menace of unemployment in Africa.
MIT · REAP Programme
Shell Nigeria (SNEPCo)
6 Sept 2018
University of Lagos
of Excellence
Re-orienting Africa's Youth Toward Self-Reliance
"To re-orientate the youth towards self-independency and confidence to create jobs and become employers of labour rather than seeking unavailable employment from sparsely available employers of labour."
The ARUA-USD, CoE develops a comprehensive international stakeholder partnership for the advancement of a holistic strategy to tackle the crisis of youth unemployment in African countries through entrepreneurship and skills development. We employ sustainable networking of multinational stakeholders and experts from ARUA member countries as well as international partnering countries and universities.
- ✓Sustainable networking of multinational stakeholders from ARUA member countries and international partners
- ✓Continuous research identifying key factors to tackle youth unemployment across Africa
- ✓Annual conferences, workshops, seminars, and stakeholder engagement meetings
- ✓Student Entrepreneurship Ideas (SEI) — turning campus ideas into real businesses
- ✓State-of-the-art Incubation & Accelerator Centres developing start-ups into business champions
Specific Objectives of ARUA-USD, CoE
Latest Journal Publications
Upcoming Events
Director, Entrepreneurship & Skills Development Centre
University of Lagos, Nigeria
In 2018, Dr. Adebisi's proposal won the hosting rights of the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA) Centre of Excellence for University of Lagos, making UNILAG the Leader and Hub in Africa for research in Skills Development and Sustainable Entrepreneurship to combat the menace of unemployment in Africa.
A First-Class Honours graduate with a PhD in Business Administration, he has ~50 journal articles and books to his credit. He was Lead Researcher (Rocket Data Star) of the Regional Entrepreneurship Accelerated Program (REAP) — a partnership between University of Lagos and MIT, USA. He was also appointed Project Manager of the $500,000 Shell Nigeria (SNEPCo) M(E)thanol Clean Cookstoves Pilot — the first of its kind in West Africa, seconded by the University to Shell for two years.
He led UNILAG to win the Coca-Cola Global Management Challenge nationally, representing Nigeria in Dubai and Russia. He led 22 teams of 156 students and 35 lecturers to design 22 new product prototypes in Lufthansa's Design Thinking project (2017). He is the Track Expert for Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Sustainable Development Goals in Africa.
Africa's Youth Unemployment Crisis
Youth unemployment in Africa is not merely an economic challenge — it exacerbates mass illegal migration, social exclusion, poverty, low economic growth, and intergenerational conflicts over labour-market policies.
Africa's youth population — projected to surpass 840 million by 2050 (UNDP 2017) — is the continent's greatest potential asset. Yet with a current median age of approximately 19 years, this generation has become a social burden rather than an economic dividend, unless urgent and deliberate intervention is taken now.
Each year, more than 12 million youths enter the African workforce seeking wage employment, but only 3.1 million jobs are created (African Development Bank, 2016). This yearly shortfall of nearly 9 million means the crisis deepens year after year without structural, research-backed solutions.