A JOINT INITIATIVE OF ILO, UNIDO AND HUMANA PEOPLE TO PEOPLE
Applications open early December 2026
Be among the first to know when the Competition opens.
We'll let you know as soon as the guidelines and application form are available. Dates will be confirmed here.
The African Skills Hubs Competition is a joint initiative of the International Labour Organization (ILO), UNIDO and Humana People to People, with the financial support of the Humana People to People Education & Training Foundation.
Across Africa, Skills Hubs are connecting training with industry, research and local economies, and accompanying the people they train into work and enterprise. Many of these models work well and are known only where they operate.
We are calling for Skills Hubs that are driving rural transformation and Skills Hubs that are driving the green and just transition — models already in operation, with results to show for them.
Two will be selected, one in each category, and what they do will be shared across the continent.
A centre of expertise that provides relevant, inclusive and demand-driven skills development and connects it to the wider ecosystem: training institutions, enterprises and the private sector, research and development partners, workers and learners. It also mentors and accompanies the people it trains, beyond the training itself.
A Skills Hub can build on a TVET institution, centre of excellence, university, research centre or industry organisation. What matters is the role it plays in connecting skills development with industry, employment, innovation and sustainable economic development.
Hubs connecting skills development with employment, enterprise, value chains and local economic opportunity in rural and underserved areas.
Hubs preparing workers, enterprises and communities for green and digital technologies, changing occupations and climate-resilient production.
Open to institutions across Africa that host or co-manage a Skills Hub. Full eligibility and guidelines will be published when the Competition opens.
Two Skills Hubs will be selected, one in each category. What they get is funding they decide how to use, a continental platform, and the recognition of three international organisations.
Money that goes where you decide: deepen what already works, reach more learners and enterprises, or document your model so others can use it.
Travel sponsored. You present your Hub to the ministries, donors, industry bodies and training institutions that shape skills policy across Africa.
Your model named and documented in a joint publication, and carried through the three partners' networks on the continent and beyond.
Selected Hubs help shape an emerging Pan-African network of Skills Hubs: peers to learn from, and peers who can find you.
Contact us at africaskillshubs@hpp-et.org.