Daniel Yu, co-founder of Wasoko, the Kenyan B2B e-commerce company that merged with Egypt’s MaxAB, has launched the Africa Jobs Fund (AJF), a new philanthropic investment fund which aims to mobilise $100 million over the next five years.
The fund intends to support companies that create high-productivity jobs across Africa. According to the fund, AFJ will focus on export manufacturing and international labour mobility, two sectors it considers among the continent’s strongest pathways to economic mobility and poverty reduction.
This launch comes as Africa faces deepening poverty and unemployment pressures. Despite years of startup growth and the rise of investment in African innovation, formal job creation has struggled to keep pace with population growth and labour market demand. In 2025, around 439 million people on the continent were living below the extreme poverty line of $2.15 a day, while Africa’s average unemployment rate stood at 8.91%. At the same time, only about three million formal jobs are created on the continent annually.
AJF argues that the widening gap between labour force growth and access to stable, income-generating employment has become one of Africa’s most urgent development challenges.
