Youths The Agents Of Change In The 21st Century

“The traditional face of Africa includes an attitude towards man and woman which can only be described in its social manifestation as being socialism” – Kwame Nkrumah

Africa’s Youth Population index is very large and it is now obvious that the future of Africa lies in good leadership, and those responsible are without dispute young leaders. We’ve all one way or the other agree that good governance, democracy, and nation building are heavily shaped by the quality of a country's politics and the array of its dedicated youth force. If the future of Africa lies in the youth, how then can space be created in the mainstream politics to realize it?

The Legacies of our hero’s past may perhaps be our starting point; if we care to investigate the leadership of these Hero’s past, the youth can, in resolving to settle for good governance and non-violence articulation, create an Eldorado - that which has never been seen or heard anywhere in the world. Youths need to add their experiences and abilities towards the re-engineering of a new Africa in terms of policies that affects the masses of Africa; from grassroots to urban.

There is no society without culture and consequently without civilization; there is neither superior nor inferior civilization. Each society has its virile youth force, and without which the politics and economic is stagnant. Leadership dynamics are eternal, following the principles laid down by good governance, and the righteous precedence left behind by transparent leaders, based on their understanding and actions.

In the case of Africa anyone having the slightest understanding of world history knows that Africa’s contributions to world civilization are nothing less than overwhelming! In spite of the combined forces of imperialism, the greatness of Africa’s pre-colonial period, the poor infrastructural/economic development to lack of credible governance, human rights violations to capacity building, marginalization to poverty alleviation; these necessary evil have long rocked Africa. 

It is therefore the responsibility of youths to come together, engage in reflecting on the dynamic solutions to curb Africa’s immerse problems. Youths can only succeeded if they network with other youth leaders, to rural and community (grassroots) youth development projects as well as utilizing their youthful potentials towards the actualization of Africa’s true growth and development.

A youth centered initiative and pragmatic ideologies, has always been the missing dots amongst the youths in Africa. The epileptic nature of youth's involvements in the development of Africa has brought untold wars and suffering; it has left issues of dynamic changes in the hands of a generation that is fast fading away. In order to implement youth initiatives, whether transnational, national and local in context, all stakeholders in youth awareness and mobilization must be encouraged to kick-off with their own style of campaign, coupled with statutory funding

This will bring the youths’ creativity in leadership and entrepreneurial skills collectively to a level in which they can be shared with other youth bodies, researchers and policy makers. This can be a very unique approach, in that it starts from the belief that youths are agents of change within their communities. Most developing African nations see youths as being the problem, on whose shoulders developmental programs can be fixed. This has been the ceremonial impression of most African leaders, and such an ideology has been doggedly championed by them (Leaders) since independence and post independence era.  The government often treats youth as passive receptors, unable to act, and needing to be acted upon. 

The greatest threat youth face today is exclusion and marginalization from decisions that affect us. Unemployment, crime, HIV/AIDS, neglect by the authorities and often abandonment to our fate, because of various forms of discrimination. These are top of the list of problems, towns and cities have to deal with. At the same time, rural and urban youths in developing African countries possess immense potential to contribute to social development if afforded the right opportunities; the youth force will triumph in various leadership and entrepreneur skills if fielded with the enabling environment to discharge and exhibit their potentials in their various field of endeavors. 

The challenge of putting youth at the center of development strategies can be compared to the challenge, two decades ago, of putting women and gender issues on the development agenda. It is no longer conceivable to solve the problems of developing countries without focusing on the role of women, and finally creating a network of holistic gender project. A similar paradigm shift is required with respect to youth development.

There is, however, a growing movement internationally such as the International Youth Foundation (IYF), International Youth Organization that have argued that youth, beyond being passive, are actively taking charge of their own destiny within their own communities. Strategies are needed to encourage and strengthen such bodies in areas of partnership with the government, NGOs and private sectors, whose main purpose will be to further propagate capacity building amongst African Youths.