At the end of March, young Africans, policymakers and experts gathered in Tangier around an important question: what role will Africa’s youth play in an age increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence, frontier technologies and the digital economy?
Significantly, the conversation was not simply about teaching young people to use technology. It included jobs, innovation, digital sovereignty and giving young Africans the opportunity to articulate what they expect from governments and institutions.
This brings us to an important African value: agency.
For decades, development conversations have often positioned young Africans as beneficiaries—people for whom programmes are designed, opportunities created and policies written.
Agency changes the sentence.
From “What can we give them?”
to “What can they create?”
Training matters. Education matters. Capital matters. Connectivity matters. Mentorship matters. But their greatest value lies in what they enable another human being to do for themselves.
This echoes our From Me to We philosophy. Teaching someone to fish is valuable; but transformation becomes possible when they also have affordable access to the lake, the tools, the market—and the freedom to innovate.
Africa does not lack ambition among its youth.
What we sometimes lack are bridges between ambition and opportunity.
Our responsibility therefore is not to manufacture dreams for the next generation. It is to remove unnecessary barriers standing between young Africans and the dreams they already possess.
Do not simply prepare young Africans to look for the future.
Give them the agency to make it.
