Junior Achievement Africa

JA (Junior Achievement) Africa is an organization with a mission to economically empower Africa’s youth by bridging the gap between classroom education and the world of work. JA programs focus on the core content areas of financial literacy, work readiness and entrepreneurship and provide experiential learning opportunities for young people to prepare for their professional lives in the 21st century. With a footprint in 14 countries, JA Africa reaches over 240,000 students, building skills and access to opportunity and employment. Throughout its 30-year history in Africa, JA has successfully developed programs that build entrepreneurial skills through real-world business experiences. One of its most successful programs has been the flagship JA Company Program®, which has reached over 45,000 young people in Africa.

In sub-Saharan Africa, JA has adapted global-standard and delivery mechanisms to meet the needs of the millions of out-of-school and un/underemployed youth (typically between the ages of 15-35).

JA’s work seeks to first address the reality that Africa’s economies are not creating as many jobs as they are graduating youth from schools, and secondly bridge the gap that exists between skills demand and supply for the jobs that do exist in the marketplace. The growth driven by job creation and entrepreneurship is essential to address the challenges associated with underemployment and unemployment in Africa.

JA’s program develops the next generation of future entrepreneurs by mainstreaming entrepreneurship education and financial literacy skills at the senior high school level where school authorities and African governments would work with JA Africa to adopt and institutionalize the latter’s globally certified curricula for African students leading to sustainable economic transformation. The overall goal is to build the business entrepreneurship knowledge that can help create dignified, fulfilled and decent jobs and sustainable enterprises in Africa to employ their peers and other marginalized youths. 

Youth are Africa’s greatest asset, but this asset remains untapped due to high unemployment. Africa’s youth population is rapidly growing and expected to double to over 830 million by 2050. The potential benefits of Africa’s youth population are unrealized as two-thirds of nonstudent youth are unemployed, discouraged, or only vulnerably employed despite gains in education access over the past several decades.

At the same time, the rise of the digital economy in this era of COVID-19 is stimulating digital innovation across sectors and its likely to generate a large pool of job opportunities in the ICT value chain. Oliver Wyman’s research revealed that digital adoption during and even in the post-COVID eras show that the world will make an irreversible trend towards e-learning and digital programs. As consumers and content creators, Africa’s youth are at the forefront of this digital revolution. However, there’s a need to improve their skills and work experience to access available opportunities in the sector. JA is taking a deep dive into developing a digital program called JA DEEP. JA DEEP (Digital Entrepreneurship Education Program) was adapted after the JA Company program for underserved non-JA Member Nations and communities without access to standard classrooms. 

Junior Achievement Africa is the largest organization on the continent working on economically-empowering youth and preparing them for the 21st century workforce. JA’s work is highly experiential, delivering curricula that address three pillars: Financial Literacy, Work readiness and Entrepreneurship.

JA's unique approach allows corporate and industry volunteers from the business community to deliver our curricula while sharing their experiences with students. Embodying the heart of JA, our classroom volunteers transform the key concepts of our lessons into a message that inspires and empowers students to believe in themselves, showing them they can make a difference in the world. Our curricula are delivered during or after class sessions. We partner with Ministries of Education and school authorities to engage students.

Our students organize and operate an actual business while in school. They not only learn how businesses function, they also learn how to buy, float and sell company shares, conduct market and product research, manage HR and finance teams, pitch their business to a panel of judges, develop sustainable business models and successfully liquidate a business by paying shareholders dividends.  They also learn 21st Century soft skills like problem solving, design thinking, consensus building, risk taking and emotional intelligence among others. 

Our beneficiary communities are primarily senior high school students across Africa but we serve other beneficiaries as well. JA Africa reaches over 2,450 students annually with over 3,000 volunteers, impacting both private and public schools in its 15 Member Nations. There are varying age demographics for our target beneficiaries. The 13-18 age groups are senior high school students who participate in our proprietary JA Company Program. Those below age 18 are required to have their parents to sign photo release and consent forms for approval before they participate. The 15-35 age groups are mainly young artisanal and vocational adults who participate in our ITS TYME Program. ITS TYME stands for Immersion Training Strategies Targeting Young Marginalized Entrepreneurs. The ITS TYME curriculum targets semi-literate youth like TVET graduates, artisanal workers, apprentices (dressmakers, construction workers, mobile phone repairers) and tourism professionals among others.

JA Africa conducts pre and post surveys to collect the learning needs of students before program implementation and those needs are measured through post-program evaluation to assess their performance. In the classroom, JA uses a blended learning approach with a highly experiential and interactive techniques teachers, volunteers and students.

Youth and marginalized women groups are the target beneficiaries who are among the key demographics we target for our ITS TYME program. We elevate their opportunities through programs that enhance their skills, knowledge and livelihoods to enable them own their economic and future success.

JA Africa’s mandate includes addressing youth unemployment, underemployment and neglect of STEM careers by young girls because of cultural underpinnings. Other JA programs that address socio-economic and environmental challenges include JA Systems (STEM program), Africa Beats Plastics Campaign (environmental sustainability program), Leadership and Innovation Camps (Women Empowerment program) and Cha-Ching (financial literacy program) among others.

JA Africa understands that human capital development is a key lever to change the trajectory of development in Africa. With over 40 years working in Africa, JA knows firsthand that although annual job creation is outpaced by the number of young people entering the workforce each year, employers still have difficulty finding suitable talent for the jobs that do exist. There persists a significant skills gap in the job market; our young people are graduating with high academic credentials but low workforce readiness skills. Furthermore, the low capacity in digital skills broadens this challenge when an increasing number of jobs are in the ICT ecosystem. This skills mismatch in Africa is exacerbating youth unemployment and underemployment.

JA’s relevant programs and methodologies work to bridge this gap by teaching youths the skills needed to be successful. Experiential education is at the core of JA Africa’s theory of change and approach to work readiness and entrepreneurship. Job shadows, mentorship, soft skills development and updated curricula that integrate opportunity to develop digital skills ensure that JA students are well positioned to maximize opportunities. We believe creativity, entrepreneurial and solutions mindset, can be the key to moving the needle on unemployment on the continent. 

JA Africa understands that human capital development is a key lever to change the trajectory of development in Africa. With over 40 years working in Africa, JA knows firsthand that although annual job creation is outpaced by the number of young people entering the workforce each year, employers still have difficulty finding suitable talent for the jobs that do exist. There persists a significant skills gap in the job market; our young people are graduating with high academic credentials but low workforce readiness skills. Furthermore, the low capacity in digital skills broadens this challenge when an increasing number of jobs are in the ICT ecosystem. This skills mismatch in Africa is exacerbating youth unemployment and underemployment.

JA’s relevant programs and methodologies work to bridge this gap by teaching youths the skills needed to be successful. Experiential education is at the core of JA Africa’s theory of change and approach to work readiness and entrepreneurship. Job shadows, mentorship, soft skills development and updated curricula that integrate opportunity to develop digital skills ensure that JA students are well positioned to maximize opportunities. We believe creativity, entrepreneurial and solutions mindset, can be the key to moving the needle on unemployment on the continent. 

JA has extensive capacity and vast experience working with youth across Africa as well as deep relationships with governments, access to schools, trust capital with teachers and strong partnerships with public and private sector entities at national and international levels. Since its founding in 1919, JA has built long-lasting relationships with the private sector, which remain the biggest employers in the healthiest economies. This natural orientation to partner with the private sector is a core strength of JA across the world and is key to our ability to remain relevant with the skills and capacity demands of the workplace, which enable us to transfer them to the young people we work with.

Given the opportunity, JA Africa will leverage all these relationships as well as the best practices from its 100 years of experience across our global network which spans over 110 countries to ensure the success of our programs.

JA Africa has a seasoned project team who has the relevant experience, understands the context, and have built the necessary social capital with key stakeholders within the educational and employment ecosystems in Africa. JA leverages its long-standing relationship with the Ministry of Education, school authorities and Parent Teachers Associations to add value, obtain buy-in and promote the brand recognition for its programs. JA’s partnership with global partners like the African Development Bank in Cote dÍvoire, The Waterloo Foundation in the UK, Project Management Institute for Educational Foundation (PMIEF) from the U.S.A, The Princes Trust International from the United Kingdom.

JA Africa has demonstrated resilience and proactiveness in the past in the face of several situations, ranging from natural disasters, institutional governance, fatal accidents and operational continuity among others. One of such situations which would have negatively impacted JA Africa members and organizational sustainability was when two of its member nations were not in good standing because of unmet financial targets and board governance challenges. JA Africa addressed the issue by convening a joint Fundraising Taskforce consisting of JA Worldwide and JA Africa board members. The sole responsibility of the Taskforce committee was to investigate the governance and financial management systems and proffer solutions to help salvage two JA Africa Member Nations that were not in good standing as member affiliates of JA Africa. The select committee came up with measures that helped to forestall operations, revamp strong governance systems and developed a road map to resource mobilization. If not for the intervention of the Taskforce, the dire implications will include job losses, salary cuts and in-country negative reputational risks for JA.

JA Africa runs a federated model governance structure where each executive Director of our Member Nations selects their own board members to provide strategic director and steer the governance affairs of that country. Therefore, each of the 15 Member Nations where JA Africa operates has their own executive directors and board who oversees program implementation at the country level. The countries are Ghana, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Cote dÍvoire, Senegal, Gabon, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Mauritius, Zambia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Eswatini.

The JA Regional Operating Office (ROC) headed by a Chief Executive Officer, assumes a regional oversight role, build staff capacity of the Member Nations, ensure quality assurance and grant agreement compliance. The ROC raises about 80% of funding that support program and project implementation at the local level.

JA Africa has shown leadership in both its program planning and execution across the continent. Its impact on the continent has won it the brand recognition as the go-to entrepreneurship organization on the continent that develops the enterprise development, financial literacy and work readiness skills of senior high students. JA Africa’s flagship Company Program and Company of the Year Competition events are two examples that underscore its leadership on the continent.

Our current student reach is 250,000 African youth through our programs in the 15 member nations across Africa.

In the next year, we anticipate to maintain or reach about 1 million youth beneficiaries within the period because of the impact of COVID-19 pandemic.

In the next 5 years, we anticipate reaching over 4 million students’ beneficiaries having maximized full access to a range of technological and data access for our students in Africa.

Our organizational goals have been categorized into immediate (within 1 year), medium-term (within 5 years) and long-term (beyond 5 years).

Immediate Goals

Diversify local funding streams to help employ technical and professional support at the Member Nation level to expand program coordination, implementation and reporting on the field.

Short Term Goals

Obtain diversified core funding to support JA Africa ROC staff to provide oversight, donor compliance, monitoring and institutional strengthening support to Member Nations.

Long-term Goals

Expand JA Africa’s membership into other African countries to reach underserved youths and expand knowledge in enterprise development, financial literacy and work readiness among Africa’s youth. In terms of students reach, we hope to cover at least half the countries in Africa with 10 million youth beneficiaries.

Political Interference on African Educational Systems: Frequent change of governments in Africa affects JA Africa’s ability to maintain high value partnership with officials at the Ministries of Education as well as program continuity in schools. The political interference on national educational policies and academic calendars, tend to affect programs rolled out for students within the school year at the country level. A classic example is Ghana, where the free Senior High School policy (where students are grouped into a track system) of the current government is perceived be having low impact on student beneficiaries. As a result, the opposition party has hinted their readiness to repeal that policy when they assume the reins of power.

Technological Devices and Access to data: The impact of the new Corona virus pandemic has derailed the educational plans of many countries and educational institutions across the board in Africa. African governments have mandated businesses and schools by law to shut down their activities to help monitor and manage the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic among their citizens. The need for technology and data access to maximize the full benefits of e-learning in schools is even more crucial than before for African students.

Public Health and Safety in Schools: Some African governments have joined their global counterparts to re-open schools for teaching and learning to begin. However, the public health and safety precautions for students and teachers is a challenge for educational authorities, schools and parents to grapple with.

Political Interference on African Educational Systems: In order to overcome the frequent political influence on educational systems and calendars in schools within JA member nations, the JA local staff are developing strong relationships which the educational officers and staff who have a permanent contract with the ministries and agencies. Additionally, the JA programs in schools have be structured with much flexibility to ensure that students can participate during or after standard class lessons. The use of corporate volunteers in our programs alleviate the burden on teachers who ‘ll not need to teach for more than 5 hours in a day.

Technological Devices and Access to data: The global need to run digital programs has seen a surge in the use of technological devices and access to data by businesses, schools and even faith-based organizations. JA Africa is exploring opportunities with technology and telecommunication firms to access discounted devices and internet access for public and rural schools in Africa.

Public Health and Safety in Schools: The COVID-19 policy restrictions and protocols on social gathering from African governments are being complied with by JA local staff and volunteers in the re-opened schools. The provision of face masks and other PPEs are being considered for our front liners who teach in the classrooms.

JA works with the strategic organizations across a broad spectrum of sectors including government agencies, school authorities, school administrators and teachers, corporate volunteers from the private sector and Parents Teachers Associations (PTA) in Africa. We also partner other education-focused NGOs to deliver a holistic learning experience for students in Africa. Other global partners like development agencies, corporations, foundations and philanthropists also support our programs on the continent.

JA Africa’s business model is informed by the empirical research gaps that exist in youth unemployment and underemployment, entrepreneurial ecosystem challenges and work readiness challenges in Africa. Acknowledging that entrepreneurship is the next big opportunity that African youth can leverage to transform their economies, our business model leverages the support of like-minded corporations, foundations and development agencies to invest in the future expertise of their workforce while they are still youth to prepare them to add value, expand  private enterprise through business creation and become global competitors with their counterparts from other continents. Tapping from the Anzisha research findings which revealed that young entrepreneurs are more likely to recruit their peers than the adult workforce, our model seeks to reach scale by empowering students with entrepreneurship, financial literacy, work readiness and 21st Century soft skills to create more businesses for Africa’s  booming youthful population as indicated by the World Bank.

The model also recognizes the need to work with like-minded ecosystem partners like the Ministries of Education, private sector, corporate volunteers, school authorities and Parent Teachers Association to collectively adapt locale entrepreneurship solutions to local realities, challenges and opportunities.

At national scale, two African governments (Gabon and Cote Dívoire) through their ministries of education have recognized the need to integrate JA’s curricula into their national senior high school educational system and with satisfactory progress made. 

JA Africa’s financial sustainability is rooted in strong, shared value-creating partnerships as well as diversity in funding sources. JA Africa’s financial health is strong at both the regional level and within the broader Africa network.  The JA Africa network receives approximately $4M in funding from over 25 global funders each year which fuels innovations and builds JA capacity through unrestricted support of operations, programmatic support, and in-kind donations. This level of funding is steady and consists of funders who have had broad partnerships with JA across many regions, for many years.

JA's grant sources are outlined as follows:

20% Funds from Corporations both local and multinational, primarily in the form of event sponsorships

60% Funds from Foundations, including corporate Foundations (Such as Citi Foundation and Prudential Foundation) as well a private Foundations.

15% Funds from JA Worldwide: JA Worldwide subsidizes the operational expenses of the regional office

5% funds from individual contributions including Board members, high net worth donors and other smaller contributions generated through web and other campaigns.

In terms of the fundraising, the percentage of funds raised at the regional level vs local level is 80% vs 20%. The regional office raises the vast majority of funds that go to the programs at the country level, as well as administrative funds to sustain the regional office.

JA AFRICA DONORS $20,000+ DONORS

Donor Partners

Type of Funding

2018-2019

2019-2020

Purpose of Funding

Project Management International Educational Foundation

Grant

$995,000

The grant will cover the next 4 years (2020-2023) for project management integration into JA Company Program.

Waterloo Foundation

Grant

$115,682

Funding is for two years (2020-2021) to supporting comparative research on employability in African countries.

The Prince's Trust International

Grant

$25,800

Funding is to pilot partner's developed program called Achieve Training.

King Hamad Prize

Prize Award

$25,000

Funding was a prize money given to support JA's contribution towards SDG 4 & 8 in Africa.

African Development Bank

Service Contract

$276,000

To build ICT and coding skills to create employment and enterprises in Kenya

Citi Foundation

Grant

$500,000

To support Citi's entrepreneurship initiative called 'Pathways to Progress.'

FedEx

Grant

$75,000

$65,000

Sponsorship of the Annual Company of the Year event

Prudential Insurance

Grant

$106,608

$110,908

To teach a financial literacy program of the donor called "ChaChing" to primary school pupils in Ghana

Delta Air Lines

Grant

$50,000

$50,000

Sponsorhip for JA's Annual Company of the Year Competition

Oliver Wyman

In-kind Support

$53,440

To conduct a full scale impact evaluation of JA's work

Tomorrow Foundation

Grant

$100,000

$100,000

Three year funding to support JA's Company Program

We seek to raise about $300,000 grant to off-set program costs to meet our FY ending June 2021. The COVID-19 situation has led to a stagnation of some of our funded programs, whose committed funds are likely to be recalled by our existing donors if the social gathering restrictions in some of our member nations persist beyond July 2020. These restrictions limit our ability to run in-person programs. Worst case scenario, student reach numbers in our member nations may reduce by 30% because we'll be compelled to lay off some regional program staff working directly with field staff.

At the regional level, JA Africa has taken measures this year aimed at retaining all staff. This included cutting staff annual performance bonuses by 50%. This reflects similar measures taken by JA Worldwide, our parent organization, which has not only frozen increments but also reduced salaries. If we're not able to meet funding targets, it will affect productivity at regional level as well as program support and effectiveness in the field.

This amount is proposed because it is the minimum the prize money will cover in cash. 

For JA Africa, specifically, the Regional Operating Center (ROC), which is based in Ghana and staffed by seven professionals, is dependent on both grant funds and a small subsidy from its parent organization, JA Worldwide, to run its operations. The ROC provides critical support to 15 country offices, enabling the sound delivery of impactful programs. Over the last ten years, the mandate of the ROC has been to fully fund itself, and the 2020 Fiscal Year, ending in June, represents the closest the organization has come to achieving that goal. The outbreak of COVID-19 has, unfortunately, impacted the achievement of that goal and has threatened and reduced grant funding both at the Africa regional level and at the global level. JA Africa now faces a critical need of operational support funding to close the year with a balanced budget. The prize funds will ensure that program work continues at the regional level, and by extension at the country level. The grant funding will provide some reprieve for Fiscal Year 2021 budget, which began on July 1. JA expects that the impact of COVID-19 will extend for some time and the sustainability of the ROC is important to the larger Africa network because for every $1 invested in the ROC, at least $8 in new value is created in monetary and non-monetary terms for the country offices. Our annual budget expenses is estimated at $643,652.

The major barriers to scaling our programs to cover more schools in JA African Member Nations are access to global funders in education, technical / technological support and long-term core funding support from private sector organizations. In this new era of COVID-19 pandemic, the unavailability of learning devices like laptops and internet data access from telecommunication firms to run digital programs in public schools and for students in rural communities will negatively impact our reach on the continent. We therefore appeal to the MIT SOLVE/ Elevate Prize organizers to introduce JA Africa to their global partners like Google, Microsoft, IBM, Vodafone, MTN etc to provide a full range of technological support to our students across Africa.

JA Africa’s partnership goal is embedded in robust programming, transparency financial accountability principles and shared-value offerings as well as diversity in funding partners within and outside the African continent. The ultimate goal is to identify and partner committed and diverse funders who can provide seamless core funding to support JA Africa’s operations across Africa. The goals seeks to partner key stakeholders along the educational and entrepreneurship value chain, by identifying like-minded government agencies, private sector organizations and Non-Governmental organizations both within and outside Africa. Beyond the programme funding period, JA will diversify funding streams and inflows through sponsorship support from leading firms and industry associations. 

In an effort to scale its reach across Africa in the areas of enterprise development, career development and workplace immersion support, JA Africa is looking to partner with global and local organizations within the ecosystem of education, entrepreneurship and financial literacy across Africa. It therefore welcomes the financial, human and technology support from any like-minded organizations operating in its 15 Member Nations. JA Africa’s current Member Nations are Ghana, Nigeria, Cote d’ Ivoire, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, Tanzania, Uganda, Eswatini, Mauritius, Kenya, and Gabon. Other forms of support from potential funders in Ethiopia and Mozambique, which are the two countries we are looking to extend our operations to, are also welcomed.

Having regular access to core funding support from partners in the above listed countries will enable JA Africa to deepen its digital and in-person programs and expand its operations to non-JA Member Nations to provide marginalized youth with educational and entrepreneurship opportunities.