Youth Engagement: The Game Changer For Africa's Development

This expository paper was written by Peter Olufemi Eludini as part of a Project for the World Bank Group Course titled “Engaging Citizens: A Game Changer For Development”. The author's words stem from his passionate zeal to see Africa transformed as the youth are given a chance to step up and take their rightful place in the scheme of things. 

Introduction

According to the United Nations (2012), Africa’s 2011 population was estimated at 1.05 billion. About 70 percent of its population is 30 years of age or younger.

There is no universal definition of the youth population. “Youth” is traditionally defined as a period of transition from childhood to adulthood. For statistical purposes, the United Nations (2011d) defines youth as those aged 15 to 24years. In the African Youth Report 2009 (UNECA2009), “youth” are defined as people between 15 and 39 years of age. However, several African countries define their youth population differently. For example, Ghana, Tanzania and South Africa define the youth population as those between 15 and 35 years of age.

This paper will choose the latter definition of youth as against the work of Gyimah-Brempong and Kimenyi (2013) which chooses the former; because at age 15-24, many of the youth are still very dependent on the society, especially still pursuing their vocations or education. United Arab Emirates has one of the youngest ministerial cabinets in the world with an average of 38 years and the youngest is 22 years (Daily Mail UK, 2016).

Why Youth Engagement is the way forward

Vices such as armed robbery, fraud, election rigging, kidnapping, insurgency among others have been reported to be carried out by the youths. Excuses such as bad economy, unemployment, African leaders’ refusal to relinquish power, corruption and nepotism are reasons for many of the aforementioned vices.

In order to achieve more proactive governance and curb vices, youth engagement is proposed as a solution due to the following reasons:

1. Youth have energy and ideas that are society's great potentials (Onyekpe, 2007)
2. Youth are the major determiners of peace and stability of a nation (Ozohu-Sulaiman, 2006; Eberly and Gal12007)
3. Youth are the key players in technological advancements and innovations.

According to Fifth African Development Forum –Youth and Leadership in the 21st Century, 2006 other reasons for youth engagement in governance are:

1. Equitable distribution of resources – Young people make up a large proportion of the population and the poor.

2. Achieving the MDGs – Five goals explicitly refer to young people in terms of educational attainment, gender balance in education, improved maternal health, combating HIV/AIDS and other diseases, and developing decent employment opportunities for young people.

3. Economic benefits – By investing in education and health, governments can increase productivity and economic growth.

4. Youth poverty requires special attention 

5. Long-term benefits –by improving the situation of youth, countries can decrease the chance that they will later become involved in criminal activity and civil conflict.

Conclusion

To achieve great and unprecedented development in Africa, the youth need to be engaged, their potentials need to be utilised, the leadership structure of African countries should be favourable for the youth to operate. If this is put in place, the energy these youth would have used to perpetrate vices and havoc would have been converted and channelled for societal development. Youth engagement has produced remarkable results over the years. Notable examples are Fix My Street (UK) and Right to Information Law, India. In lieu of this, governments of African states instead of seeing youth as source of havoc should rather harness the potentials in the youth because “they are the leaders of tomorrow” and tomorrow starts today.

References

DailyMailUk “UAE names women ministers for happiness, tolerance” www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ February, 2016

Eberly, D.J. and Gal1, R. (2007), “A Role for Young People in Building Post-Conflict Civil Society”, International Journal of Not-for-Profit Law / vol. 9, no. 4 August 2007 / Pp. 73-78. ed. pp 1-15

Fifth African Development Forum –Youth and Leadership in the 21st Century Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 26 October 2006

Gyimah-Brempong, K. and Kimenyi, M.S. (2013), Youth Policy and the Future of African Development, Africa Growth Initiative Working Papers 9, April, Pp. 1-44.

Ojo Olumuyiwa Emmanuel “Whatsapp chat and phone conversation” Founder of Progressive Youth for Africa

Onyekpe, N. (2007), Managing youths at election. The Constitution: A Journal of Constitutional Development 7 (1): 76-87.

Ozohu-Suleiman, A. (2006), The Nigerian youths in contemporary political development: Relevance, challenges, and role expectation. The Constitution: A Journal of Constitutional Development 6 (4): 97-111.

UNECA (UN Economic Commission for Africa). (2009), African Youths Report 2009: Expanding Opportunities for and with Young People in Africa. Addis Ababa: UNECA.

UNESCO. (2011b), Population Below National Poverty Lines. Millennium Development Goals Database, UN Statistics Division. New York: United Nations.

Author: Peter Olufemi ELUDINI

Lagos, Nigeria

Cover image via aasbea. com