Giving Compass' Take:

• At the World Bank’s Spring Meetings, African leaders created the  Africa Human Capital Plan, committing millions of dollars to fund better education health outcomes for young people living in Africa. 

• How can global philanthropists support this initiative? What are successful examples of youth investment models?

• Read about the importance of investing in Africa's youth leadership and development. 

Human potential across the African continent is being squandered because of insufficient investments in education, health care, and skills training, according to King Letsie III of Lesotho, who spoke at the World Bank’s Spring Meetings in Washington, DC.

He was a part of a session on the World Bank’s Human Capital Index (HCI), which measures the well-being of youth as an indicator of a country’s economic health.

“I have to keep repeating at every opportunity that sub-Saharan Africa continues to report the world’s highest rate of stunting among children,” he said during a keynote address. “This means that children fall sick more often, miss opportunities to learn, perform less well at school, grow up more likely to suffer from chronic diseases, and are economically disadvantaged in adulthood.”

He added: "With the fastest growing young population, Africa stands at the crossroads of a huge opportunity."The World Bank created the Human Capital Project (HCI) in 2018 to give countries a new framework for viewing development — one that understands youth development as being critical to long-term economic sustainability.

Read the full article about African human capital plan by Joe McCarthy at Global Citizen.