Africa Must Stop Pilot Projects, Scale Up Proven Solutions – UNDP

African countries have been urged to move beyond repetitive pilot programmes and focus instead on scaling up proven development models to drive inclusive growth and job creation across the continent.
The call was made by the United Nations Development Programme (United Nations Development Programme) during the 2026 Annual Meetings of the African Development Bank in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo.
Speaking at the event, Dr. Jide Okeke, Director of Regional Programmes at the UNDP Regional Bureau for Africa, said Africa’s development strategy must shift from fragmented experiments to large-scale implementation of successful initiatives.
“We should stop counting jobs and start counting valued enterprises,” he said.
Okeke argued that Africa’s long-term transformation depends not just on job creation figures, but on building sustainable enterprises capable of generating value across entire sectors and supply chains.
According to him, such enterprises are better positioned to create durable employment, strengthen productivity, and expand economic opportunities for young people across the continent.
He also stressed that Africa’s demographic changes demand a rethink of development strategies, noting that today’s youth face a very different economic reality from previous generations.
“The young person of 1982 is different from the young person of 2026. Africa has changed, Africa is changing and Africa will continue to change,” he said.
Okeke further urged policymakers to broaden their understanding of development financing beyond traditional financial capital.
He referenced insights from the African Economic Outlook, which identifies four critical forms of capital needed to accelerate Africa’s growth: financial capital, human capital, natural resource capital, and fiscal capital.
He said mobilising these resources effectively is key to unlocking large-scale development financing and reducing Africa’s reliance on fragmented interventions.
A major concern raised by the UNDP official was the continent’s continued dependence on pilot programmes, many of which are never expanded beyond initial implementation phases.
“We have been doing pilots since 1960. It is time for us to scale-up what has worked and what is working,” he said.
Okeke warned that the failure to scale successful initiatives has slowed Africa’s development progress, limiting the impact of otherwise promising innovations.
He called for stronger institutional coordination and investment strategies that prioritise replication and expansion of proven solutions across countries and regions.
The AfDB meetings, which ran from May 25 to May 29, were held under the theme: “Mobilising Africa’s Development Financing at Scale in a Fragmented World.”