According to Mamta Murthi, World Bank Vice President for People, who opened the event, the Africa Skills for Jobs Policy Academy marks a turning point in the World Bank’s focus on jobs and workforce development, while sustaining its commitment to early foundational learning.

Ndiamé Diop, Vice President for Eastern and Southern Africa at the World Bank also noted that economies cannot move into competitive manufacturing and digital industries without stronger skills systems, and employers must be at the center of these systems in order to for this to happen.

The Academy featured EASTRIP as a case-in-point in taking international best practices for skills development and scaling them up across East Africa. Supported by the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA), the project has embedded industrial partnerships into over 500 programs, and is rolling out competency-based training to produce low, mid, and high level skilled labor in agriculture, energy, information technology, manufacturing, and tourism sectors. So far, the total enrollment capacity has increased by tenfold and employment rate of its graduates increased from a baseline of 47 percent to 79 percent.

Maynard Mkumbwa, a Captain at Air Tanzania Company Limited and a Member of Industry Advisory Board at NIT, noted the significant improvement from graduates since the implementation of EASTRIP at the institute. “Through EASTRIP, our company has benefited a lot. We are seeing more aviation personnel joining us—aircraft engineers, flight dispatchers—and the quality of graduates is far better than it used to be”.

“Now, with better equipment and training, their hands-on skills are much improved. For aircraft engineers especially, this is a major achievement—we were lacking this capacity in Tanzania,” he said.

Dr. Prosper Mgaya, the Rector of NIT, said, “Industry collaboration has allowed us to enrich our training approach, ensuring our graduates are fit for jobs and ready to meet the demands of the sector”.

Scaling What Works

The WBG Skills for Jobs Policy Academy Practitioner Program for Africa shared successes, challenges, and practical solutions in skill development across the continent and beyond. Sessions were curated around four enabling foundations underpinning any effective skill development ecosystem, including public private coordinated governance, industry-aligned standards, results-based financing, data and evidence, as well as innovations such as digital technologies, micro-credentials, industrial certificates, and global skills partnerships that help countries train workers for domestic and international markets.

“System-level reforms take time,” said Luis Benveniste, Global Director of Education at the World Bank. “But quick wins—like partnering with firms and providers in priority sectors where there is demand, such as energy, value-added manufacturing, agribusiness, healthcare, and tourism—can deliver impact and momentum.”

From Basu’s determination to excel as an aircraft maintenance engineer to the thousands of graduates entering the workforce across energy, agribusiness, healthcare, tourism, and manufacturing, one thing is clear: when governments, industry, and training providers work in partnership—anchored in results and focused on equity—skills training becomes a powerful engine for opportunity and transformation across Africa.

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