The Mastercard Foundation has provided support to the Centre on African Philanthropy and Social Investment (CAPSI) at the Wits Business School in South Africa to enable research on knowledge and opportunities for youth employment in Africa.

The research will be part of the Foundation’s Young Africa Works Strategy, which aims to enable 30 million young Africans to secure fulfilling and dignified work by 2030, and aligns with CAPSI’s mission to create new possibilities for Africans by training new cohorts of academics and researchers in the non-profit sector and changing the African narrative with emphasis on self-reliance and African solutions.

Mastercard Foundation will provide CAPSI with $7.8 million over five years for the project.

‘The role played by the non-profit sector is generally underestimated in many economies. Several anecdotes exist in every country about how the non-profit sector keeps society cohesive and glued together through social and economic functions. Few studies have been conducted in this regard, such as the Johns Hopkins project on the size and scope of the non-profit sector in only about three African countries. This support from the Mastercard Foundation provides us a once-off opportunity to test the hypothesis that the non-profit sector is a major force to be reckoned with in African societies,’ said Professor Bhekinkosi Moyo, Director of CAPSI.