ILO announces the winner of the 3rd ILO Skills Innovation Call on Preventing forced labour in Africa

The winner of the 3rd ILO Skills Challenge Innovation Call has been announced, and the USD 30,000 prize has gone to a youth entrepreneurship network in Comoros.

News | 15 November 2021
The third ILO Skills Challenge Innovation Call on preventing forced labour in Africa through skills and lifelong learning, has been won by Kazana Innovation, an initiative of the Youth Entrepreneurship Network of Comoros. The proposal aims to help women and youth who are most exposed to forced labour in Comoros to develop the skills necessary to create their own businesses in the blue and green economies.

The winner will receive a USD 30,000 grant and six months membership of an ‘innovation lab’ that aims to provide technical support and mentoring to help implement the project.

The announcement was made by the ILO Regional Director Cynthia Samuel-Olonjuwon: “Skills development actors and stakeholders have a key role to play in the global fight against forced labour. They can be a force for prevention by supporting the social and economic empowerment of vulnerable groups, raising awareness about the forms and risks of forced labour and contributing to sustainable change in the way some sectors and markets operate. To meet these challenges in Africa, we need concrete action and we also need innovations. That is why I wish to congratulate the winner of the 3rd Skills Challenge Innovation Call, which was organized in partnership with Alliance 8.7.”


Meet the winner


The Youth Entrepreneurship Network in Comoros is a national platform designed to promote entrepreneurship among young people and women through awareness-raising, training and socioeconomic integration activities. The network will provide skills training to help develop small and medium enterprises in the blue and green economies for women and young people vulnerable to forced labour, giving them the chance to feel empowered by taking charge of themselves, supporting their family needs, working in peace and contributing sustainably to the Comorian economy.

As well as the winning project, the three projects that made it to the final will be offered membership of the ILO Skills Innovators Network , which brings together innovators, governments, employers and workers organizations, TVET institutions, academics, and development practitioners, to share ideas and experiences and encourage innovation in skills development.

The 3rd Skills Innovation Challenge Call was organized as part of a global competition by Alliance 8.7 – a multi-stakeholder and inclusive global partnership committed to achieving SDG Target 8.7 – that called for all innovators passionate about bringing new ideas with social impact to develop innovative solutions that could support pathfinder countries to accelerate action for the achievement of SDG Target 8.7. The three other winners of this competition were:
  • Ulula, AI tracker for child labour, forced labour and human trafficking prediction.
  • LegalFundi, Free and interactive application to simplify legal and regulatory processes using AI
  • Initiative des Femmes Entrepreneurs pour le Développement Durable (IFEDD), DataStake System to identify and mitigate risks of child labour, forced labour and human trafficking