As the most educated generation in Africa, young Africans provide an untapped potential to mobilize businesses to build resilience through their innovativeness, energy, and entrepreneurship. Capitalizing on this presents a unique opportunity to drive transformative adaptation while generating sustainable youth employment. However, young people face several barriers to entrepreneurship, including a lack of finance, knowledge, and skills. Facilitating an environment for youth innovation and tackling existing barriers faced by young-led Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) will enable young people to drive transformative action across the continent. 

This factsheet is part of a series that presents information from GCA’s flagship reports State and Trends in Adaptation in Africa 2021 and 2022. It aims to disseminate key adaptation information to young people and showcase youth-led adaptation action from across Africa.