by Maurice Thantan
How can young Africans become more involved in the governance of their countries, so that national public policies can be designed not only for them, but above all with them around the decision-making table? This question, the answer to which now sounds like an absolute emergency, was at the heart of two days of reflection in Johannesburg, South Africa. On November 10 and 11, 2025, the fifth edition of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) Youth Symposium brought together several hundred young people around the theme: “Youth in Governance: From Promise to Prosperity”.
More than just another forum, this event proved to be a decisive moment to hear the voice of young people in a context marked by the multiplication of discontent movements illustrating the disarray of young people in several countries on the continent. Having followed all the discussions, interviewed a number of young participants and exchanged views with some of them, three points stood out for me, which I thought it would be useful to share in this blog post.
Young Africans can wait no longer
The first observation I made at this symposium, which echoes the almost generalised upheaval of the continent’s youth, is unequivocal: Africa’s young people are expressing a marked impatience with unfulfilled promises and a future that is taking too long to build. Victims of corrupt leaders and aware of their potential, they are demanding immediate concrete action for change.
Data from the Afrobarometer network confirms this tension: in 39 African countries, 64% of young people (aged 18-35) say they prefer democracy to any other form of governance, but 60% feel that it is not working as it should. This finding illustrates their profound quest for substantive democracy as Professor Achille Mbembé puts it. The philosopher and director of the Innovation for Democracy Foundation explains that “this (substantive democracy) would not be limited to elections. It would aim to improve people’s material living conditions, liberate women, ensure ecological and environmental security and a minimum of care, justice and dignity for all.”
At the same time, employment remains young people’s top priority. Indeed, 37% of young people surveyed identified unemployment as the government’s most pressing problem. This contrast between high educational attainment (young people are better educated than their elders) and massive unemployment is a source of deep frustration. On the African continent, 60-65% of the population is under 35, but this majority is plunged into “poverty rates often exceeding 80%”.
As we have seen in Madagascar, youth unemployment and the weakness of public services, which annihilate all attempts at self-employment, as well as widespread corruption , are the characteristic elements of the great exasperation among young people that led to the popular uprising.
Liberating the digital space is imperative
In a context of restricted civic space, marked by the systematic and even systemic muzzling of traditional media, digital space remains the last bastion and the ultimate space for expression, and the one most prized by young people. Its liberation is therefore imperative. The opposite becomes a gas pedal for social rebellion, which quickly turns into popular revolt.
But why is it imperative to liberate the digital space? Firstly, so that we don’t silence the voices of young people, which is just another agent of frustration.
Young people have mastered social networking, using these platforms to express themselves and earn a living. They use messaging applications to organise themselves and become agents of change in their communities. They learn online via MOOC to acquire the digital skills they need to enter this sector.
Unfortunately, in recent years, several African governments have stepped up legal and regulatory initiatives to restrict access to digital spaces, particularly for self-expression.
In Africa, Internet blackouts during elections or demonstrations have become a weapon in the hands of rulers. Excessive taxation of Internet access is a scourge that slows down the expression of young people’s entrepreneurial potential, while the public administration cannot absorb the number of young graduates coming out of universities, and the private sector struggles to offer decent jobs to young people. The United Nations has clearly stated that “ blocking our access to the Internet is a clear violation of our human rights “.
As such, I am pleased to report here the recommendations put forward by Melvin Songwe, one of the symposium’s participants, at a parallel session organised by the Youth Democracy Cohort and Afrobarometer on the theme of “Youth Voices in Numbers: Turning analysis into action”.. These recommendations for a youth-friendly African digital future are addressed to both the African Union and sub-regional integration organisations.
To the African Union, the following is recommended:
I. Promote an African Charter of Digital Rights, ensuring a balance between security imperatives and respect for freedom of expression.
II. Promote the adoption of a continental protocol banning Internet blackouts during election periods, in partnership with the Regional Economic Communities.
III. Launch an African Digital Rights Barometer, to regularly assess states in terms of data protection, freedom of expression and access to information.
To sub-regional integration organisations (ECOWAS, CEMAC, etc.), the following is recommended:
I. Make all electoral support and technical cooperation conditional on a written commitment from member states to refrain from cutting off the Internet during election periods.
II. Set up a regional mechanism for monitoring Internet access restrictions and breaches of cybersecurity legislation.
III. Harmonise regional legal frameworks for data protection and cybersecurity within ECCAS
A frank and voluntary intergenerational dialogue is essential
Most of Africa’s socio-political landscape is marked by contrasting realities. On the one hand, there are political leaders and rulers who have been in power for decades. They are heirs to an era that is totally out of sync with the current context, and are based on an outdated way of doing things.
On the other hand, there are young people (especially those born in the early 2000s) who are hit hard by existential concerns to which the former fail to provide concrete, objective and timely answers.
In fact, an abyssal gap has opened up between young people and their elders, and urgent action is needed to reduce it. Indeed, a well-known African proverb states that “it’s at the end of the old rope that you braid the new”. Several studies have concluded that “African youth can be an opportunity if well managed, or a source of risk if misdirected”. To avoid facing the disarray of a youth who, having lost everything, takes to the streets and forces a democratically elected Head of State to flee, or the violent police repression of demonstrators, there is only one solution: a frank and voluntary intergenerational dialogue.
In my opinion, this is the only way to avoid amplifying the already existing breach of trust, which would only lead to violent confrontation, as we are already seeing here and there. As the young people said at the fifth APRM Forum: “We’re not afraid of bullets any more”. In this respect, we must salute the APRM’s initiative in bringing together elders and young people around the discussion table.
In conclusion, the Johannesburg symposium lifted the veil on a diffuse but powerful sentiment: African youth no longer wants to wait. They have the skills, they have the voice, but they are demanding to be as close as possible to the decision-making table. African public policies can no longer ignore this demand. Personally, I firmly believe that the structured and strategic involvement of young people is not only a question of generational justice, but also a condition of stability and prosperity for Africa today and tomorrow.
The challenge is twofold: to liberate digital spaces, and to structure youth participation in the political system, not as a favor but as a right. If this call goes unheeded, discontent could turn into democratic convulsion. But if these three axes are activated – institutionalisation, empowerment, accountability – then a new participatory era could open up.
Maurice Thantan is a Beninese journalist with over 10 years’ professional experience and an interest in political governance issues in Africa and technological innovations for citizen participation. In 2015, he founded the Benin Bloggers Association, which he will chair until 2019, leading numerous citizen projects focused on transparency, e-government and public accountability. His commitment then led him to join AfricTivistes, the pan-African network of bloggers and web-activists for democracy. A recognized campaigner for open data, Maurice is also an expert in Civic Tech, a field in which he designs and runs training courses on the use of technology to strengthen links between the governing and the governed. A laureate of several international leadership programs, he was named one of Benin’s 20 young leaders by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (2017), then selected in 2023 as one of the 20 best journalists on the African continent as part of the prestigious African Union Media Fellowship.