by Gideon Madzikatidze
HARARE – Zimbabwe’s junior parliamentarians say Africa Skills Week has finally given young people a seat where skills policy meets industry, with the Youth Summit addressed by Guest of Honour, Youth Empowerment Minister Honourable Tino Machakaire becoming a platform for youth advocacy rather than youth tokenism.
Speaking during separate interviews in Harare, Junior Parliamentarian for Glen Norah, Honourable Tinashe Chinyandura and Junior Parliamentarian on Women’s Quota, Hon. Alisha Malajila, said inclusion must now be measured by access to innovation hubs, productive competencies and enterprise pathways.
“Why are we here? Because we are the future of the nation. We are the future of Africa,” Chinyandura said.
He argued that early exposure to prototyping, innovation hubs and skills-for-value creation is critical if the continent is to convert its youth dividend into a demographic dividend and close the gap between qualification inflation and labour-market responsiveness.
Hon. Malajila, who credited Minister Machakaire for opening the continental indaba to junior MPs, said the Summit embodied the principle of co-creation.
“I’m so grateful (that) us as the youth are here empowered… There is nothing for the people without the people,” she said.
“We are here as a voice, advocates for the youth. A way through from the youth to our people,” Malajila added.
She noted that with 49 of 55 African Union member states represented, the Week was showcasing Africa’s cultural diversity and heritage while centring the real skills question: how training translates into employability, enterprise creation and retention of value in African economies.
Together, their interventions highlight what the skills sector calls a competency-based, learner-centred and industry-linked TVET ecosystem – one that builds transferable skills, entrepreneurial mindsets and absorptive capacity for green and digital transitions, rather than counting certificates.
Addressed by Minister Machakaire, the Youth Summit fed directly into the broader Africa Skills Week dialogue on skills anticipation, skills intelligence and value chain alignment under AfCFTA.
While officially opening Africa Skills Week on Monday under the theme “Skills for Resilient and Competitive African Industries: From Training to Value Creation,” President Emmerson Mnangagwa called for a decisive paradigm shift from theoretical education to practical capabilities that drive value creation, industrial transformation and economic sovereignty, urging operationalisation of the Continental Education Strategy for Africa 2026-2035.
Meanwhile, UN Resident Coordinator Dr Rosemary Kalapurakal concurred with Mnangagwa’s address, commending Zimbabwe’s standalone Ministry of Skills Audit and Development as a strategic institutional step and said success must be measured not by numbers trained but by whether skills investments translate into greater productivity, stronger enterprises, decent jobs, innovation and higher value retained within African economies.