ACCORDING to the Population Research Bureau, Africa has the fastest growing and most youthful population in the world.
Demographically Africa is a young continent with up to 40 percent of its population aged between fifteen and twenty-four and more than two thirds below thirty years. And this population accounts for 45 percent of the total labour force in Africa.
In this respect, the future of Africa’s economic and social transformation depends on the ability to effectively translate its large youthful population into a demographic dividend.
A genuinely inclusive society needs to ensure its youth participate in all its affairs, that young people’s views are included in development policies and that young people develop leadership skills. However, African youth face many challenges of which unemployment is the major one. Youth unemployment remains rampant and the youth are adversely affected.
African youth account for 60 percent of all African unemployed, according to the World Bank. In most African countries, youth unemployment “occurs at a rate more than twice that for adults,” according to AfDB. Being unemployed constitutes itself a big obstacle to the youth participation in the democratic process in Africa.
However, due to the profound influence of the Western cultures, Africans are too keen on their democracy and political rights whereas they forget/devalue / belittle their material benefits to satisfy their individual rights to property, food and clothing which should be at least treated with equal consideration as their civil rights are if not take precedence over political rights.
The flaw of African democracy and human rights lies in Africans’ recognition of superiority of their political rights to their material benefits, which detract their attention from and hinder their social and economic development.
Clearly, in Africa, including Namibia, democracy and human rights are misinterpreted and misapplied to a large extent.
In view of this, the priority task of the youth is to empower themselves with regard to their material benefits. To do this they need to receive a good education to obtain career knowledge and skills.
As known, levels of education in Africa are comparatively low creating a considerable skills gap among youth at working age. According to the African Development Bank, 25 percent of African youth remain illiterate. Many young people have little or no skills and are therefore largely excluded from productive economic and social life.
The capacity building training will enhance and strengthen the skills of youths for meaningful political engagement in the country’s democratic process. African future is in the hands of the youth of prepared minds.
For African youth to actively engage themselves in democratic process, the youth must also be aware of what kind of democracy they are in pursuit of. Generally speaking, the democracy African youth are prone to follow is an 100 percent Western one due to the Western cultural influence in the past hundreds of years of colonialism and interactions between Westerners and Africans.
Youth are the group to be easily acculturated. Nkrumah claims, African society is not the old society, but a new society enlarged by Euro-Christian influences. Acculturation is the most sweeping phenomenon in Africa. Euro-Christian influences have introduced a social, cultural and economic organisation into African life together with new values (Nkrumah 1967). “Without warning and without physical or psychological preparation, Africa has been invaded by a world revolution,” (Mbiti 1990). The African traditional solidarity is constantly being smashed, undermined and in some respects destroyed.
The end results are that Africans’ emphasis is shifting from the “we” of traditional corporate life to the “I” of modern individualism (Mbiti 1990).
Given the problems and challenges the Western democracy has caused to the Western world, in my humble opinion, African youth inclusive of Namibian youth do not need to copy such systems. Instead, Africans should strictly filter out foreign ideas and borrow only the ones that serve African values and needs.
Dialogue with other civilisations does not mean Africans should contaminate African civilisations until Africans cannot recognize African values anymore. (Some African people as witnessed in Namibian newspapers refuse to acknowledge African traditions and cultural values, which is a dangerous sign for African society).
Democracies are not universal and are implemented in different manners.
Africa probably needs a different type of democracy suited to its own unique and peculiar politico-economic and socio-cultural context rather than mimicking liberal democracies of Europe and America. Africans should explore possibilities of crafting an African democracy that is sensitive to the continent’s various social diversities.
Africa should develop new democratic models rooted in its people’s traditions that embrace such aspects as sharing, defending each other, protecting natural resources and respecting each other.
African youth is the solution to African development challenges.
With material benefits as solid foundation and their own type of democracy culturally rooted in African soil, African youth will play a vital and unique role in their democratic process.