The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), has urged African countries to move beyond pilot programme initiatives and focus on scaling up successful development models across the continent.
Dr Jide Okeke, Director of Regional Programmes at the Regional Bureau for Africa, UNDP advocated this at the ongoing 2026 Annual Meetings of the African Development Bank (AfDB) group in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo on Friday.
Okeke said, Africa’s development efforts should prioritize building sustainable enterprises capable of creating multiple jobs across value chains rather than focusing only on employment statistics.
“We should stop counting jobs and start counting valued enterprises,” he said.
According to him, Africa’s economic transformation depends on creating systems and businesses that generate broader opportunities and long-term growth.
Okeke said that the African Youth Agency reflected the continent’s changing realities and the evolving aspirations of young Africans.
“The young person of 1982 is different from the young person of 2026. Africa has changed, Africa is changing and Africa will continue to change,” he said.
He also stressed that capital for Africa’s development should not be viewed only from a financial perspective.
The UNDP official referenced recommendations from the African Economic Outlook Report, which highlighted four forms of capital critical to Africa’s growth.
He said these included financial capital, human capital, natural resource capital and fiscal capital.
Okeke urged African leaders and institutions to harness these resources strategically to mobilize development financing at scale.
He further criticized the continent’s long-standing dependence on pilot programmes without adequate expansion of successful initiatives.
“We have been doing pilots since 1960. It is time for us to scale-up what has worked and what is working,” he said.
The AfDB 2026 Annual Meetings started on May 25 and ends on Friday, May 29 with the theme, “Mobilizing Africa’s Development Financing at Scale in a Fragmented World.”(NAN)
