ANALYSIS: Youth Policy in Africa

National Youth Policy is important because it represents a formal acknowledgement by governments and political leadership of their obligations to the youth population in a country. Policy can be developed as a comprehensive plan for securing the well-being and development of the Youth. More significantly, in countries where a national youth policy exists, it gives government institutions and civil society organizations a mandate to follow.

From a global perspective, the drive to secure youth development, youth empowerment and youth engagement has grown as the crisis of Youth Unemployment continues to be an enormous challenge for governments all over the world. In response there has been a large amount of dialogue and research on finding effective solutions to the problems experienced by the global youth population. One of the more public responses is the convening of The First Global Forum on Youth Policies by the United Nations, Secretary General’s Envoy on Youth and other organizations in 2014. It is at this forum that national youth policy is emphasized as a “crucial” tool to enhance and monitor progress for youth.

In Africa, up to 31 African countries have established a national youth policy. Even though up to 96% of African Union member states have public institutions or government authorities that are primarily responsible for youth, only 16 out of 53 countries specifically allocated a portion of their national budget to youth and youth programming. Meanwhile, up to 12 of the 22 nations that do not have a youth policy are ranked in the bottom 30 of 170 countries in the Youth Development Index produced by the Commonwealth Youth Programme.

Although over 50% of African States have formulated national youth policies, it is disappointing to have a very small number of countries converting their vision into reality through dedicating adequate budgets and investing in the youth so to speak. Ultimately, as Snezana Samardzic-Markovic points out, “Youth policy is central to any governance…a society without a perspective for its youth is a society without a clear perspective for its own future”. Thus what remains the largest challenge for African Youth is the absence of youth policy in 22 countries on the continent. This information does paint a clear picture of just how many African governments have a committed vision to its youth and questions how we can ‘embrace’ our future without prioritizing the youth.

Specific Data on National Youth Policy, National Youth Councils and Budgets allocated to Youth (Information extracted from Youth Policy Labs to reflect an African continental perspective):

The State of Youth Policy in Africa – (Policy & Legislation dedicated to the Youth)

No.	YES (Policy Exists)	NO (No Policy Exists)	UNCLEAR	DRAFT (Policy Being Developed)
1	Angola	Algeria	Chad	CAR
2	Benin	Comoros	Djibouti	Cote-D’Ivoire
3	Botswana	Congo-Brazzaville	Egypt
4	Burkina Faso	Equatorial Guinea	Guinea
5	Burundi	Eritrea	Lesotho
6	Cameroon	Guinea-Bissau	Mauritania
7	Cape Verde	Libya	South Sudan
8	DRC	Mali
9	Ethiopia	Sao Tome and Principe
10	Gabon	Seychelles
11	The Gambia	Somalia
12	Ghana	Sudan
13	Kenya	Tunisia
14	Liberia
15	Madagascar
16	Malawi
17	Mauritius
18	Morocco
19	Mozambique
20	Namibia
21	Niger
22	Nigeria
23	Rwanda
24	Senegal
25	Sierra Leone
26	South Africa
27	Swaziland
28	Tanzania
29	Zambia
30	Uganda
31	Zimbabwe

Government Budgets Allocated for Youth/Youth Programming

Arranged by Hierarchy of Amount Allocated in US Dollars (Year: 2014)

No.	Country	Budget Allocated (US Dollars)
1	Nigeria	$ 503.8 million
2	Kenya	$ 307 million
3	Libya	$ 110 million
4	Morocco	$ 107 million
5	Zimbabwe	$ 44.5 million
6	Niger	$ 40.8 million
7	South Africa	$ 40 million
8	Namibia	$ 39.8 million
9	Senegal	$ 16.9 million
10	Cape Verde	$ 12.1 million
11	DRC	$ 5.9 million
12	Ghana	$ 3.7 million
13	Tanzania	$ 2.5 million
14	Rwanda	$2.4 million
15	Mauritius	$ 2.3 million
16	Uganda	$ 10,413.29