July 01, 2019

Betting on Africa’s youth dividend to tackle climate change

located:	Kenya, South Sudan
editor:	Bob Koigi

Africa’s youth generation, which constitutes two-thirds of its total population, has traditionally been associated with the continent’s most biting problems, including runaway unemployment and migration crises.

Yet for those who have capitalised on the energy and dynamic approach of the ‘young bulge’, the dividends have been enormous and impressive.

And nowhere is this gusto being more felt than in tackling climate change, a phenomenon that is set to hit the hardest, going by scientists and researchers predictions that Africa will bear the greatest brunt of the weather vagaries in the coming decades, which will alter millions of people’s way of life.

The tech-savvy youth have taken to heart the gospel of building resilience and mitigation among the African populace, bolstered by the implosion of innovation across the continent.

From Sudan Utopia, a group of five youths producing and casting seedpods using drones to combat deforestation, intelligent greenhouses in Kenya that allow farmers to irrigate their crops at the click of a button – even when they are far away from their greenhouses – to a flurry of applications in West Africa that alert farmers in advance of any expected weather changes, allowing them to be forewarned, the African youth remain a silver bullet to climate change preparedness.

Yet enough is not being done to tap into this pivotal constituency. The African Youth Initiative on Climate Change, the largest voice of African youth on matters climate change, now boasting of a membership of 20,000 young people across 45 countries, says that while it has achieved major milestones in linking, exchanging and sharing ideas across the continent, the political class hasn’t fully embraced it in the climate agenda.

The young people need to be at the front seat of policy formulation and implementation while being given a voice at the highest platforms of the land because they, more than anyone else, will bear the full impact of weather changes.

Photo: The African Youth Initiative on Climate Change/Facebook