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Rethinking Youth Engagement to Safeguard African Futures

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African youth learn how to build a community center in North Darfur. Photo courtesy of UNAMID via Flickr commons.  (License)

Youth, broadly defined as persons between the ages of 15-35 by the African Union, constitute one-third of the population in Africa. Roughly half of the populations of Nigeria, Egypt, Tunisia, and Kenya are youth. The ten countries in the world with the biggest youth populations are in Africa. However, a large youth population is a double-edged sword in many ways. One example — if the pipeline into labor force participation includes quality education and good employment prospects, youth are likely to contribute to national and continental development. However, when met with an environment infertile for personal and career development, a youth bulge can quickly become a source of instability.

Despite often being faced with the latter situation, African youth demonstrate great resilience. Young African entrepreneurs are more optimistic about business opportunities and less afraid of their businesses failing than anyone else in the world. Uganda, for example, has the highest entrepreneurship rate globally. Youth are also increasingly politically active and have helped to catalyze democratic transitions in several countries, including Burkina Faso and Senegal. Young Senegalese activists mobilized via social media and hip-hop music to peacefully usher in opposition contender Macky Sall in 2012. Their Burkinabe counterparts at the University of Ouagadougou created an NGO, Balai Citoyen, to spearhead the response to Blaise Compaoré's attempts to stay in power. The forum for dissent that Balai Citoyen provided was a major factor contributing to Compaoré's ouster in 2015.

Not all youth involvement on the continent is positive. However, socio-economic inequality, exclusion from politics, and the failure of political leaders to implement development goals have fueled rising discontent. The situation is especially dire in Sub-Saharan Africa, where according to World Bank data,  the average youth unemployment rate over the past decade is at 17.2 percent (greater than the global average of 13.1 percent in 2016). Unemployment also affects political participation and inclusion of youth. Participation in the electoral process is costly, whether as a voter or candidate. It can be expensive to get to a voter registration site, or the costs of campaigning could be prohibitive respectively. When unemployed, the opportunity cost of participating is also greater, as one could instead attempt to source vital funds. Therefore, on both ends, African youth face salient disincentives to participate politically and affect change via the extant system.

Youth unemployment is just one factor among many helping to drive insecurity, conflicts and violent extremism, migration, and divisions across the continent. Some research has validated these factors as reasons why young people are joining extremist groups such as Boko Haram in the Lake Chad Basin, Al- Shabaab in Somalia and Kenya, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), etc. One needs only to consider the counterfactual (suppose these groups did not have disgruntled youth to recruit from) to see how youthful devotion has exacerbated the damage these terrorist organizations inflict. For one, Boko Haram would have it difficult to find as many child suicide bombers as it currently has if the children were in secure enriching learning environments.

Interventions in the area of youth engagement should focus on damage control first. A lot of damage has occurred, and African governments need to devote the lion's share of their efforts to curb the most virulent strains of youth unrest. For example, if, as the above-cited article on child suicide bombers suggests, children are susceptible to recruitment by terrorist organizations due to a feeling of not belonging, interventions should first target those feelings of alienation. The existing traditional early child education setting is one means by which governments can foster a sense of belonging. Providing educational technology and materials at no cost to family traditional early child education centers is one such intervention. For deeper, structural transformations, just as in some of the fastest growing Asian economies, one must admit that it is not apparent what policy interventions will work best, and would do well to adopt a gradualist approach. Focused attention and consideration of multiple options are essential in order to engage youth, safeguard African futures, and capitalize on the contributions they can bring to national and continental development.

Idayat Hassan is the Director of the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD-West Africa) based in Abuja, Nigeria.

 

 

 

 

 

About the Author

Idayat Hassan


Africa Program

The Africa Program works to address the most critical issues facing Africa and US-Africa relations, build mutually beneficial US-Africa relations, and enhance knowledge and understanding about Africa in the United States. The Program achieves its mission through in-depth research and analyses, public discussion, working groups, and briefings that bring together policymakers, practitioners, and subject matter experts to analyze and offer practical options for tackling key challenges in Africa and in US-Africa relations.    Read more