The 2024 annual flagship policy conference organized by PEP was held in Nairobi, Kenya on 5 June 2024. The conference, which focused on the theme—The Future of Work in the Global South—was part of the broader PEP Annual General Meeting.
The day-long conference explored two urgent issues spread over two sessions. The first session on “What Works for Youth Employment in Africa: Identifying specific actions to improve the lives of young women and men in 10 African countries” drew on PEP supported research—part of the What Works for Youth Employment in Africa program—and was organized in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation. The second session on “The AI Revolution and Labour Markets in Developing Countries: Towards a Southern-Driven Research Agenda” explored the opportunities, challenges, and policy implications of AI for developing countries, including a keynote presentation and a panel of international experts that brought Southern perspectives to the global conversation on AI. The session aimed to help define a research agenda that reflects the unique priorities, realities, and development needs of countries in the Global South.
Over 160 participants, including researchers, practitioners, international experts, representatives of donors and international organizations, and policy actors from 29 countries attended the event. In her opening remarks, Carol Newman, Chair of the PEP Board of Directors, emphasized the importance of preparing for the future of work to secure decent livelihoods for the youth. PEP Executive Director Jane Mariara welcomed the return to in-person convenings and reinforced the value of evidence-based dialogue in shaping inclusive labor market policies.
The first session focused on ensuring dignified and fulfilling work for the youth and presented insights from PEP’s research on the topic, implemented in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation. Tade Aina, the Foundation’s then Chief Impact and Research Officer, introduced the session by outlining the Foundation’s Young Africa Works strategy that seeks to enable 30 million young Africans, and particularly women as well as the marginalized, to access dignified and fulfilling work by 2030. He also emphasized the importance of partnerships with organizations like PEP to ensure sustainability beyond 2030.
All panelists identified investing in training, particularly vocational training for entrepreneurship, as vital for decent job creation. Participants identified three key policy priorities: strengthening monitoring and evaluation systems of the existing Youth Employment Programs (YEPs), expanding vocational and entrepreneurship-focused training, and enhancing institutional coordination for all youth employment initiatives.
Both Thiané Tall, a PEP researcher and youth organization representative from Senegal, and Tsega Gebrekristos Mezgebo, Assistant Professor at the Ethiopian Civil Service University, highlighted the persistent mismatch between formal education and labor market needs. Francis Adebayo, Assistant Chief Planning Officer at Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Finance, emphasized how vocational training can help marginalized youth overcome poverty through accessing dignified work. Dibo M. Willis-Ambetsa, Managing Founder and CEO of OnTrak Kenya, shared her own journey: “Without training, I would not be here today. I am a big advocate for training, and we cascade this through my organization.”
The second session examined the opportunities, challenges, and policy implications of AI for developing countries. Keynote speaker Ekkehard Ernst, Chief of the Macroeconomic Policies and Jobs Unit at the International Labour Organization, emphasized the need for strategic development, regulation, and governance of AI to protect workers from the Global South and support transitions such as the shift to green economies.
Guillermo Cruces, PEP Research Fellow and mentor presented findings from a new PEP research paper—co-authored with Veronica Amarante—titled “Generative Artificial Intelligence and Its Implications for Labor Markets in Developing Countries: A Review Essay“. The paper delved into the transformative potential of AI technologies in developing economies, related challenges and the policy implications of these for the Global South (please see also a related blog and also a second blog on a related survey.
Panelists at this session primarily addressed the risks of AI-driven inequality, especially between the Global North and the South. Megan Ballesty, Co-lead and Public Policy Specialist at Sur Futuro in Argentina, reinforced the value of building scenarios in policy planning because it allows to map as well as assess potential outcomes, while Phyllis Migwi, Country General Manager at Microsoft East Africa, advocated for seeing AI as an enabler for existing job creation goals.
Sarah Cook, Professor at The University of Nottingham Ningbo, cautioned against the proliferation of low-quality jobs in the Global South. She said that increasing the number of low-quality jobs is likely to increase inequality between the North and the South and contribute to the de-skilling of university graduates as work becomes “taskified”. John Matogo, Corporate Social Responsibility Leader at IBM for Middle East & Africa, emphasized the importance of reskilling and upskilling to bridge the inequality gap, between those who have the skills to adapt to technological changes—especially AI—and those who do not, particularly as emerging roles like prompt engineering gain relevance.
Rohinton Medhora, Member of the PEP Board of Directors, closed the session by underscoring that in rapidly changing economic conditions, predicting labour market outcomes requires open-mindedness, flexible assumptions, and a willingness to experiment. The 2024 Policy Conference showcased the power of collaborative, Southern-driven dialogue in shaping solutions to evolving global challenges. It reaffirmed PEP’s commitment to inclusive development through rigorous, policy-engaged research on the future of work.
For further reading and multimedia highlights from the 2024 PEP Policy Conference, explore the following resources:
A detailed blog highlighting key takeaways from the two sessions at the policy conference.
