Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Skills Audit and Development has used the third Africa Skills Week in Harare to press a delivery-first agenda, calling on the African Union and its member states to convene a Biennial Africa Education and Skills Summit. The appeal sits in a communiqué titled “Harare Call to Action on Skills: From Training to Value Creation: Skills for Resilient and Competitive African Industries,” released during the event, which ran from 12 to 16 October 2026 in Harare, Republic of Zimbabwe.
The gathering itself showed real operational scale. It drew 1,636 attendees representing 49 of the African Union’s 55 Member States, or 89 percent, including 875 Zimbabwean and 761 non-Zimbabwean participants. Of the total, 1,469 attended in person and 167 joined virtually, while 603 were youth and students. A Skills Development Marketplace and Exhibition featured more than 53 exhibitors, among them 10 international exhibitors, connecting skills, enterprises and innovation.
Building on earlier editions held in Ghana and Ethiopia, the Zimbabwe government affirmed Africa Skills Week as a recurring platform for national and regional implementation. In the communiqué, it argued that Africa’s demographic dynamism, industrial ambitions and digital and green transitions demand relevant, inclusive and agile skills systems, and that training must connect to productive investment, technology, strong institutions, finance and markets if it is to deliver decent work, enterprise, productivity and resilience.
The call to action is anchored in existing continental frameworks: Agenda 2063 and its Second Ten-Year Implementation Plan, the Continental Education Strategy for Africa (CESA) 2026-2035, the Continental TVET Strategy 2025-2034 and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). The government framed the shift it seeks as one from declarations to delivery, from certification alone to demonstrated competence, and from training alone to sustainable livelihoods and African value creation.
On the practical side, the priorities set out for governments, parliaments, TVET and higher technical institutions, employers and industry, workers and social partners, training providers, youth and learners, regional and continental bodies, development partners, academia and civil society are detailed. They include adopting a whole-of-government approach linking education, employment, industrial and trade policy with finance, innovation, climate action and social protection, and aligning CESA and the Continental TVET Strategy through country-led priorities that build on national systems and reflect differing implementation capacities.
Skills investment, the communiqué says, should be aligned with productive investment and local and regional value chains, including agro-processing, automotive manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, critical minerals and beneficiation, transport and logistics, renewable energy and digital trade. It calls for stronger enabling legislation, institutional coordination and social dialogue so that skills support local production, value addition and competitiveness rather than the continued export of unprocessed resources.
Employers are cast as co-designers, co-deliverers and co-investors in skills development, alongside government, training institutions and workers’ organisations. The document urges expansion of quality apprenticeships, internships and dual training through sector partnerships and work-based learning compacts, with industry involvement in occupational standards, competency-based curricula and assessment, and participation by small enterprises and master craftspersons. It also stresses competent supervision, occupational safety, fair treatment and learner protection, so that work-based learning builds capability without substituting for regular employment or exposing learners to exploitation.
Preparation for AI, digital, green and human-centred futures features prominently, with calls to integrate digital, artificial-intelligence, green, entrepreneurial and transferable human skills across TVET and higher technical education, support lifelong learning and flexible upskilling pathways, invest in teachers, trainers, institutional leaders and workplace mentors, and modernise learning environments while addressing connectivity and access barriers.
The government further calls for evidence-based systems built on labour-market information, skills anticipation, value-chain analysis and graduate outcomes tracking, with success measured through employment, earnings, enterprise sustainability and productivity rather than enrolment and certificates alone. It advocates advancing the Pact for Skills Africa as an African-led continental framework, developed through feasibility work and sustainable financing and advanced through relevant African Union processes, including the relevant Specialised Technical Committee, for consideration and endorsement.
Qualifications portability, inclusion, sustainable financing and youth enterprise round out the agenda, with reference to Zimbabwe’s own Heritage-Based Education 5.0 as an African-led model. Full details of the communiqué and the summit call are available at https://panafricanvisions.com/2026/10/zimbabwe-urges-au-to-convene-a-biennial-africa-education-and-skills-summit-at-recent-africa-skills-week-2026/
Whether the proposed Biennial Africa Education and Skills Summit moves from communiqué to calendar, and how quickly member states translate these priorities into funded implementation plans, will be the test of the Harare call.