The findings of the East Africa youth survey
conducted by the East Africa Institute were both hopeful and worrying. Following
the study, the interest in the plight of the youth and concerns about the state
of our common future has been unrelenting.
Unemployment among youth, especially rural
woman, is worryingly high. The vast majority of the 10 million African youth
who enter the job market annually are either unemployed or underemployed.
While youth are optimistic about the future
– which they believe will bring more jobs, better access to quality health and
education – they are strongly inclined to give or take a bribe, evade taxes and
engage in electoral fraud.
The political and bureaucratic processes
lack both imagination and creativity to harness the unprecedented abundance of
Africa’s youthful human capital. The African Union’s African Youth Charter
signed in 2006 remains an innocuous document. Conversations across the
continent, from Accra to Nairobi are unanimous about a future in peril.
The state of Africa’s youth is not strong
because the youth are not willing to step up to the plate. The state of
Africa’s youth is feeble because we don’t care enough and think someone else
will deal with it. The corridors of public offices on the continent are teeming
with highly paid consultants, donors and foreign NGOs grappling with Africa’s
problems.
Yes we need help. But the help we receive
cannot be modeled on the classical industrial age paradigm. Our path to
prosperity and a secure future where youth thrive must be powered by Africa’s
own unique, novel and contextually relevant ideas.
There is not an overabundance of easy
solutions. Building inclusive prosperity, providing African youth with the
right skills and creating well-paying jobs will demand everything of our
politicians and policy makers. It will demand more than hollow charters or
declarations from the African Union.
First off, our education system, at all
levels, must prepare our youth for an unknown future. We must educate for a
post-knowledge economy. Standardized tests powered by rote learning and unthinking
regurgitation must be replaced by an orientation to analytical reasoning,
experimentation, discovery and problem solving. Creativity and innovation, not
basic numeracy and literacy must become goal of education.
But our education must prepare young
Africans not just for the workplace. Great citizens and ethical leaders are sorely
needed on the continent. Citizenship is more than nationality or ethnic ties. Citizenship
is a sacred obligation to service, a commitment to common aims and a constitutional
injunction to civically engage.
Ethics is about rectitude. It is about
values. An ethical leader is honorable, persuaded by decency and an invariable
commitment to justice. Ethical leadership springs from the wells of great and
vigilant citizenship.
A strong predisposition among youth to bribery,
tax evasion and electoral fraud is an indictment on our societies. It betrays a
fundamental and simultaneous failure of citizenship and leadership on the adult
side of the aisle. Ours is a case of a rotten barrel spoiling a bumper crop of
apples. Fix the barrel.
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