A conversation with Nardos Bekele-Thomas
In her first exclusive interview, Nardos Bekele-Thomas, CEO of AUDA-NEPAD, talks forcefully about the imperative to place youth at the centre of development and provides ideas on how this can be achieved.
Ethiopian Nardos Bekele-Thomas has been the CEO of the African Union’s Development Agency (AUDA) for only six months but is already getting a feel for what her job entails – which often means having to be in several places, sometimes at the same time. In the past week alone, prior to our interview, she had arrived in Egypt for COP27 from Japan where she was for the JICA Annual Meetings and was on her way to Indonesia for the G20 meetings to then finish a gruelling travelling schedule in Niamey for Africa Industrialisation Week. More engagements are rolling in as we speak.
AUDA was previously the NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa’s Development) Planning and Coordination Agency. It was renamed and imbued with a fresh mandate by the African Union’s Assembly of Heads of State as part of efforts to accelerate the implementation agenda of the continental body.
Having met, over the last six months, most of Africa’s Heads of State and criss-crossed the continent, she says Africa’s biggest emergency, the most pressing concern, is the youth challenge.
“Africa’s population is extremely young and across the continent, governments are struggling to create opportunities for them to earn a living and make meaningful contributions to their societies,” she says.
Bekele-Thomas believes that this gap, where young and energetic people do not have a stake in society or are not empowered and engaged, is a genuine threat to the peace and security of the continent and requires urgent action.
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Read the entire conversation with Nardos Bekele-Thomas on African Business.