Africa's blue economy holds significant potential to drive inclusive economic growth, employment creation, and sustainable development across the continent. Despite this potential, youth and women remain underrepresented in enterprise ownership, leadership, innovation, and participation in higher-value segments of blue economy value chains.

The Africa Blue Economy Youth and Women Accelerator Programme seeks to address these constraints by strengthening the capacity, competitiveness, and resilience of youth- and women-led enterprises across Africa's blue economy. The programme will adopt an integrated approach that combines enterprise acceleration, business development support, market access facilitation, investment readiness, access to finance, ecosystem strengthening, and policy engagement. Through a network of locally anchored delivery partners and ecosystem support organizations, the programme will support entrepreneurs to develop viable enterprises, create decent jobs, increase incomes, and contribute to sustainable blue economy transformation.