“The future is in building scenarios for tackling the challenges of our VUCA-world rather than running away from it”, said Ms Mandipa Ndlovu at the L&D Talks 2024 organized by Stimulearning in Brussels. “What we need is Vision instead of Volatility, Understanding instead of Uncertainty, Clarity instead of Complexity and Agility instead of Ambiguity". Also, in lifelong learning and development.”

Ms Mandipa Ndlovu is a skilled strategic adviser and governance specialist who is currently a doctoral researcher at Leiden University. "There is currently increased interest in Africa from the Global North", she says. A snapshot of Africa shows a clearly globally significant continent. But it also struggles with big challenges.

SNAPSHOT OF AFRICA

By 2030 young Africans are expected to constitute 42% of global youth. From 2030 onwards 30 million of youths are expected to enter the African labour market annually. The total working population is expected to grow by 70% to 450 million by 2035. By 2050 Africa is expected to be home to 461 million young people aged 15-24. Young Africans will form over a quarter of the world's labour force. Additionally, within 3 generations, 41% of the world's youths will be Africans. Africa presents thus an enormous market opportunity for trade.

Moreover, while the rest of the world is ageing, Africa is getting younger. The uptake of new technologies has leapfrogged progress in Africa. Over 160 million Africans gained broadband internet access between 2019 and 2022 and the increase in Sub-Saharan Africa between 2016 and 2021 was 115%. Artificial intelligence has taken a big role, not only in financial services but also in learning and development.

Ms Ndlovu, the continent of Africa obviously has a lot of potential as seen from the snapshot, but undoubtedly this also comes with challenges?

Mandipa Ndlovu: Of course, and they are far reaching. Even though this generation of Africans is more educated than the previous generations, they are considerably more likely to be unemployed and looking for a job. There are problems of unemployment, underemployment and economic management. Africa has a huge unemployment crisis and in South Africa, despite being the second largest economy in Africa, the situation is one of the worst. According to the OECD the biggest challenge in South Africa is the unequal quality of school education, its low average level and the high drop-out rates. There is a strong reduction in the quality or effectiveness of education systems across the continent. The mismatch of skills to meet market needs is a major barrier to growth and inclusivity. The African youth demographic is in search of decent and productive work, but 90% of all jobs are informal. Informality and self-employment are the norm with 20% of the young people between 15 and 24 being neither employed nor in education or training (NEET). There is a clear disconnect between what presents itself as a potential and the skills needed to enhance market needs. Decreases in formal education prompt increased entry of and shifts in various actors in lifelong learning as we know it today.

Are there measures taken to tackle these problems? 

There are measures taken, for example the TVET-system (Technical and Vocational Education and Training) which UNESCO puts forward as a strong factor for economic growth on the African continent. It addresses challenges such as inequality, climate change and unemployment. Seven percent of pupils are registered in this TVET-system. However, the system also faces challenges. Only 4% of public expenditure is devoted to vocational education and training. And despite the growth in access to the internet, still only 43% of people in Africa have access to it. If you know that there is a lot of e-learning going on, and that upskilling and reskilling largely happens on a digital platform, you can understand that this is an enormous problem. Another challenge is that people’s time is disproportionately divided between learning and seeking livelihoods. The question is then, what do you do for the people that fall through the cracks of the system? There is still a lot of tension between what the goals and current realities of the TVET-system are today. This should be a consideration for L&D practitioners involved in integrating talent from, and within Africa.   

What are the implications for lifelong learning and norms? Are they about to change? 

I often ask myself whether lifelong learning is a goal for the future or a luxury of the past. I must confess that I am still trying to figure that out. More so, in a time where global problems are always felt at the local level, even the simplest of issues are complicated. We are all connected in a multipolar, multi-crises VUCA-world. VUCA means that there is a lot of Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity. There are huge challenges facing us in so many aspects of our daily life. Just think of food provision, energy supply and prices, climate change, health issues, as well as national and international security. Our economic systems are volatile as the fabrics of communication, social order, and governance are tested. The only certainty is that no country, nor anyone, is an island. We are all interconnected, that’s why we can't think of solutions in silos. The only way to plan for the future is in building plausible scenarios based on current understandings to tackle the challenges of our increasingly VUCA-world rather than running away from it. What we need is Vision instead of volatility, Understanding instead of uncertainty, Clarity instead of complexity and Agility instead of ambiguity. 

"I often ask myself whether lifelong learning is a goal for the future or a luxury of the past. I must confess that I am still trying to figure that out."-

Can you illustrate this ‘futures thinking’ or ‘scenario thinking’ with an example? 

Of course. Let’s look at it from a European context. It’s no secret that migration in a global world is a huge topic. It influences how people are voting, how they are thinking about the future of their organisations, and of their country. At this moment most migrants in Africa are still in Africa. The biggest number of migrants in Africa are moving regionally, they are not moving to Europe or another continent despite what many people may believe. For argument’s sake, let’s flout a ‘collapse’ archetype scenario for Africa where skilled migration from the continent shifts to Europe, the US or Canada – a scenario where they are allowed integration pathways, and the African continent is left in a skills deficit due to a lack of stability and opportunity. How are receiving countries and organisations looking at training and cultural integration programmes for those people? Are their skills meeting market needs for the context in which we are arriving? Do they have the necessary digital skills they need for learning and are the receiving countries and organisations' learning structures set up for the potential additional support needed? How are we looking at inclusion in L&D in that sense? It is important to be thinking about the future in this way. In the next 20 years, young Africans are projected to be about a quarter of the world’s labour force, while the European population continues to age. We need to be proactively thinking about the implications of this.

How can futures thinking be used as a tool in the situation you describe here?

If we are thinking of the future of lifelong learning and the role of L&D in it, the first thing we need to know is that we should not try to predict the future. We simply do not know what is going to happen. But we have to be prepared to imagine a range of scenarios. More important than ‘being right’ in our predictions is that our scenarios are based on expert contributions. The future is unknown, only plausible futures exist. That’s one of the 3 assumptions in futures thinking. The second assumption is that seeds of the future already exist in the present. We already have an idea of what's happening at this moment and the challenges we are facing. The third assumption is that we have some influence over the future that eventually plays out. It doesn’t have to be a roller-coaster, we do have some grades of autonomy for directing the future outcomes of our organisations and the systems in which we operate but that starts with exercising some futures consciousness.

"More important than ‘being right’ in our predictions is that our scenarios are based on expert contributions."

What do you mean by futures consciousness?

Futures consciousness means that we need to be aware of and interested in how the future may evolve, and how our current behaviour, attitudes and actions may affect the future. So, it does not help to say: ‘This will never happen!’ What happened to us in 2020 with the corona-crisis showed us how dangerous this kind of absolutist thinking is.  Futures consciousness is basically an intentional awareness of change and progress. It is about continuously scanning the shifts in our surroundings. It also includes the human capability to hope, visualise, anticipate, plan for, and imagine settings in the future. It encapsulates a system of personal traits and psychological abilities such as effective thought processes and experiential learning. These are traits that help us understand and deal with the future and change. And this is where it gets interesting for learning and L&D. Jakkie Cilliers, Head of the African Futures & Innovation at the Institute for Security Studies described a futures scenario as a story about the future, a sequence of events that unfold over time and that are coherent, internally consistent, and plausible. When thinking about the future of lifelong learning and L&D, the future stories need to be coherent, internally consistent, and plausible. If they don’t make sense in your organisation or in the context you are working in, they may not be relevant in plotting plausible scenarios. 

You mentioned Sohail Inayatullah's Futures Triangle as a tool used in futures thinking?

Sohail Inayatullah’s Futures Triangle is a conceptual tool used in futures studies to help understand and map out the dynamics of change. It consists of three main components: the pull of the future, the push of the present, and the weight of the past. Analysing these three components helps to identify the tensions and interactions between them, providing a clearer picture of the possible futures and the pathways leading towards them. The pull of the future represents the visions, hopes, and aspirations that pull us towards a certain future. It includes the desired outcomes and goals that people or organizations aim to achieve. It answers the question: ‘What are we striving towards?’ It could be an utopian vision, ideal scenarios, or aspirations that guide actions and decisions today. The push of the present are the current trends, issues, and drivers that push us from the present towards the future. It involves understanding the forces at play in the present that are shaping the direction of change like technological advancements, societal trends, political forces, and economic changes. This dimension focuses on what's already happening that shapes the direction we're moving in. The weight of the past includes the historical, cultural, and institutional barriers that hold us back from change. It represents the inertia and constraints that need to be overcome to move towards the desired future. It could be entrenched systems, beliefs, historical decisions, or structural constraints that resist new developments or emerging futures.

There is a range of futures tools. Why did you pick out the Futures Triangle?

The futures triangle allows for a simplified way to recognise, and plan for aspirational outcomes in a VUCA world. It allows to refine (unlearn) ideas and ways of doing that no longer fit in an interdependent, multipolar world and scan the operational environment (internally, nationally, and globally) to identify present, or historical hindrances to progress upskilling.

According to you, what are the most important things to keep in mind when thinking about the future of lifelong learning and L&D?

Most important to keep in mind is that transcontinental knowledge sharing is a key driver for collaboration and (un)learning. Most often we stick to peer-to-peer learning, or learning stays limited to learning within our organisations or across organisations. But there is also another dimension we should consider, in particular the transcontinental dimension. That’s why my second advice is to expand your horizons! L&D sustainability can only be achieved through the use of environmental scanning and other foresight methodologies as we continue to operate in an interconnected, polycrisis world. 

"Finally, I advise targeted investment in contextual scenario building to plan for all futures. The possibilities are endless, whether utopian or dystopian. Scenarios give us options for strategies as we navigate the VUCA world we are living in."

info@mandipandlovu.com

LinkedIn: Mandipa Ndlovu