Green Governance Africa hosted the Youth Green Jobs Expo, a dynamic learning and networking space that connected youth entrepreneurs, enabling knowledge exchange and the sharing of best practices in climate-smart and innovative farming models. The expo is part of broader efforts to tackle youth unemployment while accelerating Zimbabwe’s transition to a green economy.
With unemployment rising, there is now a chance to reconfigure the jobs landscape while putting the environment at centre stage. The future economy will thrive on reusing, repairing, refurbishing, remaking, and repurposing. This transformation will create new kinds of creative and purposeful jobs.
By 2035, Zimbabwe aims to build a US$16 billion renewable energy sector, unlocking hundreds of thousands of jobs, powering communities, and asserting leadership in Africa’s clean energy transition. Zimbabwe enjoys more than 300 days of sunshine each year, with vast stretches of underutilised land and a youthful population hungry for opportunity.
A 2024 report by FSD Africa and Shortlist projects that Africa’s green economy could generate up to 3.3 million new direct jobs by 2030. The report’s modelling estimates that energy and electricity alone could generate up to 2 million direct jobs by the end of the decade, accounting for about 70% of the projected green jobs. Solar energy could create around 1.7 million of these jobs, or 57% of the total, while electricity transmission and distribution could add another 197,000 jobs.
Agriculture and nature sectors could add up to 700,000 jobs, about 25% of the total. Within this, climate-smart agricultural technologies could account for 377,000 jobs, aquaculture and poultry farming 189,000 jobs, and ecosystem conservation another 117,000 jobs.
Green jobs help nations realise environmental goals and contribute to livelihoods. This is not a new idea, but it is one that needs more attention.
Jennifer Allan, a lecturer in politics and international relations at Cardiff University, describes climate action as an “economic multiplier” because creating green jobs helps mitigate the ecological crisis.
