The second Africa Climate Summit takes place from 8 to 10 September 2025 at the Addis International Convention Centre in Ethiopia. This year, the conversation moves decisively from high level pledges to practical pathways for work and income. Jacob’s Ladder Africa will lead the green jobs and skills agenda on site, anchoring a high level session on 10 September at the Africa Pavilion in partnership with the African Union Commission’s Department of Education, Science, Technology and Innovation. The goal is straightforward, create tangible employment opportunities that are directly linked to climate action.
A pavilion built for outcomes, not optics
Running alongside the summit’s main programme, the Green Jobs & Skills Pavilion is designed as an African led, solutions driven space. It will convene youth, women, indigenous communities, private sector leaders, civil society and policymakers to align training, investment and hiring. As JLA Co-Founder and CEO Sellah Bogonko notes, Africa’s young people and marginalized communities need real jobs and sustainable livelihoods. When supported, they become the innovators and changemakers advancing Africa’s green transformation.
For readers who have followed Jacob’s Ladder Africa’s ecosystem work, this focus builds on earlier efforts to catalyse green entrepreneurship and employment across campuses and communities.
Policy alignment, skills pipelines and a continental timeline
The African Union Commission says green skills and jobs sit at the heart of the newly adopted Continental Strategy for Technical and Vocational Education and Training 2025 to 2034. The aim is a pipeline of future ready workers who can drive sustainable industrialisation, climate resilience and inclusive growth. Momentum will continue beyond Addis. The AUC will convene Africa Skills Week 2025 in October. That platform will foreground green skills as a driver of economic transformation under the Decade of Education and Skills Development, and extend conversations that begin at ACS2 into concrete national and regional programmes.
Where the jobs could come from
Three sectors stand out for near term job creation.
- Renewable energy. Projections suggest up to 4.5 million jobs by 2030 through decentralised solar and clean cooking rollouts. Clean cooking has become an active industrial story in East Africa this year, with local manufacturers scaling production and distribution.
- Sustainable agriculture. An estimated 700,000 jobs could be unlocked, including roughly 377,000 roles via climate smart agriculture technologies. The agriculture lens cuts across inputs, irrigation, cold chain, advisory tools and data services.
- E mobility. Forecast to become a 2.85 billion dollar market by 2030, generating employment in assembly, logistics, maintenance and software.
These sector narratives connect to earlier stories we have tracked around green investment vehicles and community level outcomes. The most compelling efforts combine climate impact with job density and local manufacturing, a theme we have seen in distributed energy initiatives across the continent.
Financing, measurement and inclusion will decide success
ACS2’s theme, “Accelerating Global Climate Solutions, Financing for Africa’s Resilient and Green Development”, signals that capital mobilisation remains the bottleneck. Yet finance alone will not deliver jobs without careful programme design. Three questions to watch in Addis:
- Placement ready training. Do TVET updates and short courses map tightly to employer demand, including soft skills and safety standards for field work.
- Localisation of value chains. Are public procurement and incentives set to favour local assembly and service networks, so jobs stay where the climate assets are deployed. Evidence from e mobility shows how local assembly plus service infrastructure can expand opportunities beyond the factory floor.
- Data and accountability. How will governments and partners track jobs created, wages, gender participation and retention. Clear metrics will separate photo-op wins from durable employment.
Continuity from ACS@ONE to Agenda 2063
JLA’s leadership at ACS2 builds on ACS@ONE, a civil society series in late 2024 that reviewed progress since the inaugural Africa Climate Summit in Nairobi. The through line is a shift from aid dependency toward investment in local innovation. That framing aligns with Agenda 2063, and with a wider East African pivot to practical climate tech, from EV buses and motorbikes to clean cooking appliances and mini grids. For deeper background on e mobility readiness and infrastructure gaps, see our earlier explainer on the quiet rise of electric cars in Kenya.
Who is coming to Addis
More than 45 heads of state and government are expected, alongside ministers, development partners, youth leaders, civil society and private sector representatives. Co convened by the Government of Ethiopia and the African Union Commission, ACS2 offers a test of whether Africa can align skills policy, financing and enterprise formation fast enough to turn climate ambition into mass employment.
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