President John Mahama has warned that Africa’s massive youth population could turn into a ticking time bomb if governments fail to create jobs quickly enough to absorb them.
Speaking at the private-public business dialogue of the ongoing 9th Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD IX) on Thursday, Mahama stressed that the continent’s young people must be at the centre of policy and investment decisions.
“The youth form 60% if you take the age category of between 16 and 35 they form 60% of Africa’s population. And so that’s not a demographic you can ignore. But aside from that, the world is changing, and it’s now a knowledge economy.”
Mahama argued that Africa’s youth are increasingly drawn to new and dynamic sectors rather than the traditional paths of agriculture and industry.
“The youth are interested in certain sectors that are not the traditional sectors, and so in the creatives, in the renewable energy space, even if they go for traditional sectors like agriculture, they are looking at agri tech and other, you know, knowledge driven aspects of those traditional sectors.
“And so it is important to find where their interests are and invest in those sectors so that you can attract the youth to go into those sectors.”
He highlighted how rapidly youth-led innovation is transforming economies across the continent.
“Now, if you look at Africa in 2024 there was about an investment of 4.2 billion in startups, and a lot of that went into the biggest majority was about 45% which went into fintechs.
“The fintech space is growing at an astronomical rate in Africa, and it’s mainly driven by smart, tech savvy youth who have seen openings and are taking advantage of it in all our countries, a change in the economic structure is happening.”
He cited Ghana as an example of this transformation.
“For instance, in Ghana, about in 2015 the services sector overtook agriculture and industry and manufacturing to become the largest sector in our economy. And that’s how it should be. And so, for instance, if you take the fintechs, I met the fintech groups, and one of the interesting ones I found was an agri tech company, and it was solving a problem that we’ve been struggling with as government for many years, how to extend credit and support to farmers in order that they can increase productivity.”
President Mahama described how a youth-led innovation used technology to address inefficiencies in agriculture.
“We had a shot in the dark approach distributing fertilizers, distributing inputs and so on and so forth, and you couldn’t tell who exactly those inputs were going to and whether you were getting value for money for those inputs. I mean, these young people set up the fintech, they set up a platform.
“They gave mobile phones to farmers. They distributed to the agricultural inputs to the farmers based on their acreage and their need, and based on the fact that they had them on the platform, they could send credit to them by mobile money, and at the end of the farming season, go directly to the farmer and off take the production.
“And that changed it completely. The farmers are able to get a credit score now, and so you can see who’s credit worthy and who’s not. And so it’s changed the face of agriculture. It’s changing the face of agriculture in our country.”
He stressed that creative industries and youth startups are proving more effective in creating jobs than older economic models.
“Apart from that, the creative sector and youth startups are adding jobs faster than the traditional sectors. And so if you take the creatives, renewable energy and those spaces, they add about four jobs before you can create one job in agriculture or manufacturing.
“And so investing in that sector means that we can absorb more of the myriad of young people who are coming out of school.”
He cautioned that relying only on manufacturing and agriculture cannot solve Africa’s unemployment challenge.
“If we decide to concentrate on manufacturing and industry, Africa needs to turn up about 12 to 15 million jobs a year. You cannot create that in manufacturing and industry and agriculture alone, but the rate at which the creatives and digital space add jobs is much faster than the traditional economy, so it’s a place that we must invest as governments in order that we can absorb more of the youth.”
President Mahama concluded with a warning about the dangers of failing to act.
“We know that we say the youth bulge, or the huge youth population in Africa, is an advantage, but if we do not create enough jobs fast enough to absorb those young people coming out, then it will become a gun powder keg and it could cost humans.”
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