What Happened at Hesed World's First Youth Capacity-Building Webinar
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
Updated: 7 hours ago
By 2050, more than one in four people globally will be African. Yet every year, millions of young Africans enter the labour market while far fewer formal jobs are created.
With this in mind, on March 10, 2026, speakers from the United Nations Development Programme and the African entrepreneurship ecosystem joined Hesed World Founder & CEO Kiki Lawal for Hesed World's first Youth Capacity-Building Webinar, a two-hour conversation on global positioning, entrepreneurship, and what it takes to build a career or business that can sustainably uplift a life, a community and the global future.
"Hesed World is not just preparing youth for the future. We are preparing the world for a youth-led future." — Kiki Lawal
Hesed World Founder Kiki Lawal shared the story of a highly educated young Nigerian man she once met who was working as a driver because opportunities were limited. His story, she said, is not unique. It reflects a broader reality that Hesed World was built to address: potential alone is not enough, and access to knowledge, mentorship, and networks changes everything. Africa's youth, she made clear, are not problems to be solved. They are solutions waiting to be activated.
"Many global actors see Africa not as a beneficiary, but as a partner of co-creation. We need mutual effort to realize the development goals the way you want." — Hiromi Amano
Hiromi Amano, Youth Engagement Analyst at the UNDP Representation Office in Tokyo, walked attendees through how global systems work and how young people can position themselves to participate in them. Drawing on a career that has taken her from a small town in Japan to Jordan, Qatar, Sudan, Switzerland, and back to Tokyo, she made a central argument: global opportunities are shaped less by geography and more by passion, preparation, and the right professional habits. She walked through the work of UNDP, the Youth Co:Lab programme, TICAD, and the timbuktoo initiative, showing how Africa is increasingly being framed as a partner in co-creation in global development conversations. Her practical advice on basic professional skills, T-shaped expertise, and connecting passion to the language of the SDGs gave attendees a concrete framework for taking their first steps.
"A lot of the professionals you admire today were not always like this. They went through a journey. They made mistakes. They grew from those mistakes and sailed forward." — Ezinne Nwazulu
Ezinne Nwazulu, Managing Partner of 234Finance, brought the conversation closer to home. She focused on what it takes to move from capacity to capital: building competence over time, creating visibility through consistency, and investing in depth rather than breadth in relationships. Using stories from her own journey, including her experience building 234Finance from an economic website into a pan-African ecosystem and her involvement in organising Nigeria House at Davos, she showed what these principles look like in practice. Her session was a direct and honest account of what it takes to build something with which the world is ready to engage.
"Observe the trends. See where the world is moving. Carve a niche and run with it. Even if the noise everywhere is so loud, carve a niche for yourself. Deepen your roots in that niche. When the right time comes, it is easier for opportunities to find you because you have built a position and prepared yourself well for real impact." — Giftie Umo
Giftie Umo, Founder and Executive Director of Girls Leading Africa and the webinar moderator, encouraged speakers and participants to clarify their thinking and translate it into action. Her closing remarks brought everything back to four principles that anchored the session: resilience, openness, flexibility, and niche.
Click here to watch the full event — Hesed World's First Youth Capacity-Building Webinar
