When this is done right, the high levels of youth unemployment on the continent would be drastically reduced, while Africa's natural resources would also be better utilised.

Madam Constance Swaniker, said this in Accra, when she launched Design and Technology Institute(DTI), a technical and vocational education and training centre, which is also her brain child.

She noted that while Africa had a growing middle class with sophisticated taste for good design, the continent also had a youthful population that was ill equipped to create the goods that this consumer audience required.

Madam Swaniker said whilst Africa had enough natural resources to satisfy its needs, "we simply have not found the means to utilise these resources to our best advantage."

She said it was the driving force that motivated her to establish her own factory,that could produce commodities of good standard.

Madam Swaniker said the institute sought to train a new generation of talented and creative individuals, well equipped to contribute towards the continent's socio-economic needs and growth.

She said young Africans had to be trained to see design and technology as critical enablers to the continent's prosperity, adding that to enable them to compete, they would require critical skills, especially in the creative sector.

Madam Swaniker said while she aimed towards turning the institute into a leading industrial job training and prototype manufacturing center in West Africa, "we also aim to spread the reach of DTI skill training model to at least seven ECOWAS countries, and also advocate a conducive environment in West Africa to support research and industrial design."

Mr. Anis Haffer, Educationist and Member of the Council of the Ghana Education Service, said the aim of education was to produce people that could contribute towards a functional society.

He said the socio-economic progress of the continent could be realised much better, if institutions of learning, aimed at producing people geared towards producing solutions.

"We need practical thinkers that can solve the continent's problems," he said.

Madam Tove Degnbol, Danish Ambasador to Ghana, described the initiative as one needed in Ghana and added, that for a country in need of jobs for the new generation, skill training was much needed.

She commended Madam Swaniker for her effort and said the institute had the potential to breed entrepreneurs, who could in turn generate more jobs for the country's teeming youth.

"We live in  world of global commerce. Unless we can match the standards of consumerism set by our competitors, we risk becoming the dumping ground for foreign goods," Nat Nuno Amarteifio, a former Mayor of Accra observed.

He said Madam Swaniker's aim to raise the quality of locally manufactured products to global requirements was therefore highly commendable.

Mr Amarteifio said through the efforts of institutions like the DTI, new markets would be opened for young creative people who were both in and outside the continent, and that would in turn broaden young people's participation in Africa's development.

Madam Swaniker is a renowned Ghanaian sculptor, who has chalked great achievements in her field over the years.