Andela: An African Freelance Leader Going Global

I’ve been pre­oc­cu­pied by a sto­ry that should be far bet­ter pub­li­cized in the free­lance lit­er­a­ture. It’s the impor­tant role that free­lanc­ing can play in cre­at­ing a larg­er, broad­er and deep­er mid­dle class in Africa and else­where in the devel­op­ing world. Two reports, in par­tic­u­lar, caught my atten­tion. First was a recent report on young African employ­ment from the ILO, the UN agency.

“The young peo­ple in Africa are con­front­ed with mul­ti­ple chal­lenges .. Africa is the only region where the youth bulge will con­tin­ue to grow in the fore­see­able future, pre­sent­ing both an oppor­tu­ni­ty to reap the demo­graph­ic div­i­dend and an immi­nent time bomb and threat to social cohe­sion as well as mas­sive migra­tion in search of oppor­tu­ni­ties … Just over one in five youth were not in employ­ment, edu­ca­tion or train­ing (NEET) in 2019; this state of job­less­ness has been steadi­ly grow­ing since 2012 mir­ror­ing the trends in the glob­al rate … Young women are par­tic­u­lar­ly more affected.”

To learn more and read the full arti­cle, please vis­it forbes​.com