The African Human Capital Data Sheet 2026: Past Trends, Skills, and Future Pathways presents new evidence on population trends by level of education, skills, and demographic transitions across the African continent.
© IIASA
Developed within the Yidan Prize-supported project at IIASA and the Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit (SALDRU) at the University of Cape Town, the publication combines demographic reconstructions and projections with innovative indicators of education quality and skills.
A key innovation of the data sheet is that it moves beyond measuring education only through years of schooling. Using the Skills-in-Literacy Adjusted Mean Years of Schooling (SLAMYS) indicator, the publication combines educational attainment of the adult population with actual literacy skills, offering a more comprehensive measure of human capital and workforce preparedness across African countries.
It highlights how investments in education, particularly girls’ education and learning quality, are closely linked to fertility decline, productivity growth, and Africa’s future demographic dividend. By integrating education directly into demographic projections, it demonstrates how different development pathways could shape future population growth, labor force dynamics, and economic resilience across the continent.
For policymakers, the data sheet provides an evidence base for long-term planning in education, health, labor markets, and sustainable development. The country-level indicators, regional comparisons, and future scenarios are designed to support strategic planning, investment prioritization, and monitoring of development progress.
© IIASA
The publication builds on earlier research developed at IIASA and the Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital (a collaboration between IIASA, the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and the University of Vienna) on multidimensional population projections, education-based demographic forecasting, and human capital measurement. It draws on data and projections from IIASA’s global population and human capital projection framework, the Wittgenstein Centre Data Explorer, United Nations World Population Prospects, and newly developed human capital datasets.
The African Human Capital Data Sheet 2026 is available in English and French and includes dedicated Senegal Country Profiles in both languages. More information and downloads are available on the dedicated website: www.africanhumancapital.org.
News
22 March 2021
The value of cooperation for sustainable development in transboundary river basins
Can cooperation across sectors and countries help to achieve sustainable development? How do stakeholders in the Indus and Zambezi basins envision the future and how can they make that future a reality? IIASA researchers looked into these questions as part of a large-scale initiative with international partners.