50×35 Founding Working Roundtable: Financing Pathway From Learning to Earning, Mobility, & Jobs

Following the Future Force main-stage conversation, this private working roundtable brings together a smaller group of participants to test the ideas, evidence and partnerships that could advance Africa House’s 50 by 35 Initiative. The 50 by 35 Initiative is a continent-wide mobilisation platform to catalyse, coordinate and track $50 billion in human-capital investment by 2035. Rather than operating as a single financing vehicle, 50 by 35 establishes a shared target and organising framework through which governments, employers, financial institutions, investors and philanthropy can align existing and new commitments behind the systems required to build a world-class, future-ready African workforce—linking skills, recognised credentials, global mobility pathways and job creation, and enabling two million young Africans to progress to the top of the skills pyramid. an effort to mobilize $50 billion in investment by 2035 to build a world-class, future-ready African workforce and place two million young Africans at the top of the skills pyramid. BackgroundAfrica will add more people to the global workforce over the next decade than the rest of the world combined, yet the continent remains structurally positioned as a source of labor at the entry level rather than at the top of the human capital pyramid — the AI engineers, materials scientists, geologists and power engineers the global economy will need. Without a financing architecture capable of moving young people from learning and training to earning and global opportunity, the continent’s demographic potential faces risk. Why this Roundtable?Africa’s workforce transition cannot be financed through grants alone. Funders are too often invited to support talent programmes as corporate social responsibility rather than as investable and scalable market-based opportunities. When the capital required to finance skills, higher education, job transitions, cross-border mobility and enterprise is available, it is too often delivered through disconnected products with risk distributed poorly across the system. Young people, often lacking collateral, credit histories or family wealth, are left to absorb an outsized share of the risk, while banks and institutional investors frequently remain outside the market. This roundtable asks what a coherent capital stack would look like if it were designed around the transitions that matter: learners gaining relevant skills and recognised credentials; workers securing jobs and moving safely to where opportunity exists; and entrepreneurs accessing the capital required to sustain enterprises and create employment at home. The 50 by 35 Initiative will convene governments, employers, financial institutions, investors and philanthropy to align public funding, commercial and institutional capital, philanthropy and development finance. Its practical agenda includes, among other instruments, blended-finance platforms, pooled risk-sharing facilities and outcomes-based mechanisms, alongside affordable education and income-linked loans; targeted scholarships and grants; employer-backed training finance and wage-linked repayment; working-capital and revenue-based finance for youth enterprises; bank-originated lending tied to verified credentials, job offers or mobility pathways; and first-loss capital, guarantees and insurance for student and worker mobility. Together, these tools can lower the cost of capital, crowd in private finance and absorb risks that commercial lenders cannot reasonably carry alone. Who This invite-only roundtable will convene stakeholders in finance, policy, education, and job creation. These will include philanthropists, bank and non-bank financial institutions, asset managers, employers, universities/ training providers, employers, lenders, government partners, and delivery platforms needed to turn that proposition into investable structures. AI will be considered across this agenda, as both a profound threat and opportunity. Guests are invited to bring one practical lesson or example and one question the group should examine. No presentation is required, and participation does not imply a funding or delivery commitment.Guests will be invited to join the Africa House closing reception after the roundtable. If you believe you can contribute to this discussion and take action to move the agenda forward, please join us.Attendance is by invitation only. Registration is subject to approval.