{"id":5043,"date":"2020-02-10T10:11:00","date_gmt":"2020-02-10T10:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cms.ja-africa.org\/?p=5043"},"modified":"2026-01-15T12:48:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T12:48:22","slug":"ja-global-leaders-meet-in-johannesburg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms.ja-africa.org\/backend\/ja-global-leaders-meet-in-johannesburg\/","title":{"rendered":"JA Global Leaders Meet in Johannesburg"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The global Board of JA Worldwide met in Johannesburg, South Africa on 4th<\/sup> February, 2020 for their first of three annual board meeting. The meeting, hosted by JA South Africa, brought together global leaders of JA including JA Worldwide staff, members of the Global Board of Directors, JA Africa Board members and other stakeholders<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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JA Africa Board Chair, Charles Muyiwa Moyela welcomes guests to the event <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The two-day meeting, which represented the first meeting on\nthe global board in Africa, featured conversations about the central role of\nAfrica\u2019s youth in the future of the global workforce. This included a panel\nwith JA Africa Board Chairman and the newest addition to the JA Worldwide\nboard, Mr. Peter Njonjo, founder and president of Kenya-based Twiga Foods. In\nhis comments on the panel, Mr. Njonjo highlighted the need to change the\nnarrative in Africa where many young people know very little about entrepreneurship.\nHe also spoke about the need for a more enabling environment for entrepreneurship\non the continent. Referencing his own experience, he said,\u201d We need to build an\necosystem around how to access capital. For me, starting my business, my wife\nand I had to sell our house to fund our business.\u201d He charged JA to leverage its\nregional influence with young people across the continent to build a movement\nof social change makers by creating youth employers rather than allow schools\nto teach students how to search for jobs that may not exist. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Attending the meeting were Peter Njonjo, Founder and CEO of Twiga Foods, Ade Ayeyemi, CEO of Ecobank, Michael Mutiga and Martin Mugambi, Citi Bank Executives <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In a different feedback session, JA South Africa alumnus\nand CEO of Hesed Consultancy, Vumile Msweli, emphasized\nthat more opportunities should be created to enable students to interact with\nestablished entrepreneurs. She said, \u201cThe communication of the reality of\nentrepreneurship is important because it can be rough. I would appreciate to\nhear that one day the millions will come but the journey looks like this. I\nthink having that authentic conversation with people who have been through it\nand became successful would make the JA experience more impactful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In exploring\noptions for expanding the reach of programs, JA Nigeria CEO, Simi Nwogugu said\nit is important to digitalize JA programs to enable more young people to access\nthem. She said, \u201cWe realized that in Nigeria, especially, we are not going to\nbe able to reach the millions of students if we don\u2019t leverage on technology.\u201d\nShe added that JA Nigeria has introduced digital skills as a fourth pillar to\nJA\u2019s core pillars of entrepreneurship, work readiness and financial literacy\nand explained that leveraging digital educational skills are essential for the\n21st<\/sup> Century workforce. Africa\u2019s youth are becoming more technology\nsavvy and the most effective way to engage them is through digital channels and\nplatforms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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JAWW Staff and Board members Phil Evans, Brandie Conforti, Mayu Avila and Erin Sawyer <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

According\nto African Development Bank\u2019s report, by 2050 Africa will be home to 38 of the\n40 youngest countries in the world, with median populations under 25 years of\nage. This will result in an estimated 10-12 million new people\njoining the labour force each year. With this anticipated population boom, it\nis expected that Africa\u2019s youth will shape the future of work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking\nduring the Board meeting, Mr. Ade Ayeyemi, the Group CEO of Ecobank said \u201cWe\nhave to address the challenge of youth unemployment,\u201d adding that \u201cif we don\u2019t\ngive them opportunities we will become their opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The global Board of JA Worldwide met in Johannesburg, South Africa on 4th February, 2020 for their first of three annual board meeting. The meeting, hosted by JA South Africa, brought together global leaders of JA including JA Worldwide staff, members of the Global Board of Directors, JA Africa Board members and other stakeholders The …<\/p>\n

JA Global Leaders Meet in Johannesburg<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5046,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":{"featured_alumni_video":"","year":""},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cms.ja-africa.org\/backend\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/JAWW-3.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms.ja-africa.org\/backend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms.ja-africa.org\/backend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms.ja-africa.org\/backend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms.ja-africa.org\/backend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms.ja-africa.org\/backend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5043"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms.ja-africa.org\/backend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10250,"href":"https:\/\/cms.ja-africa.org\/backend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5043\/revisions\/10250"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms.ja-africa.org\/backend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms.ja-africa.org\/backend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms.ja-africa.org\/backend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms.ja-africa.org\/backend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}