From Aspirations to Actions: Transforming Emerging Leaders at the Youth Connekt Africa Summit 2017
I am often fascinated by editorials examining the differences between extroverts and introverts. Extroverts are believed to gain energy from other individuals while introverts, conversely, lose energy from being around other people. As an introvert, I have long accepted the aforementioned theory. That is, until I joined thousands of emerging African leaders at the Youth Connekt Africa Summit in Kigali, Rwanda. One of the first speakers at the summit, Mr. Akinwumi A. Adesina, President of the African Development Bank, articulated my experience in its entirety when he declared “When you’re among youth, you become energized.” As I, too, absorbed the wealth of energy radiating throughout the event, I visualized my role in harnessing the energy, creativity, and visions of my fellow emerging leaders to make effective changes to the face of global health.
Youth Connekt Africa Summit Overview
The Youth Connekt Africa Summit boasted an attendance of over 2,500 emerging leaders representing 90 different countries from around the globe. The event was hosted at the Kigali Convention Center from in July, and it featured a myriad of leaders from throughout the sub-Saharan Africa region. Some of the summit’s most notable speakers included His Excellency Paul Kagame; Jack Ma, CEO of Alibaba Group; Dr. Mukhisa Kituyi of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development; and Abdoulaye Mar Dieye of the United Nations Development Programme. The solutions-oriented summit addressed some of the most pressing issues that African youth are facing today. The summit exposed the abundance of ideas possessed by African youth to solve the critical issues affecting their communities, and their strong need for support to bring those ideas to fruition.
50 Million Jobs by 2020
The event kicked off with a lively discussion titled, “How do we get to 50 million jobs by 2020?” This session’s panelists discussed how the population of African youth is expected to reach one billion by 2050 and the ramifications of this population growth on employment opportunities. These statistics highlight the urgent need for the public, private, and international sectors to invest in youth. With growing concerns regarding young African migrants risking their lives crossing the Saharan Desert and Mediterranean Sea in search of employment opportunities, creating 54 million jobs on the African continent by 2020 became a prevailing theme for the summit.
Restoring Youth’s Hope in the African Continent
As Amnesty International reported in July 2017, there has been a threefold increase in the death rate (0.89% in 2015 to 2.7% in 2017) for African migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe. These statistics underscore the urgency for local and international communities to not only invest in job creation but invest in the capacity-building of African youth. Ms. Francine Muyumba, a young, forward-thinking leader and the President of the Pan African Youth Union of the African Union, believes that some African youth embark on the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean Sea because they have lost hope in the continent. She emphasized the roles that both youth and well-established leaders play in restoring optimism in employment opportunities on the African continent: “Youth should find hope and see a future in the continent and leaders must act now as to not lose more young people.”
From Visions to Actions
As the first day of the summit identified the gap between African youth’s visions for future development on the continent and the resources for youth to execute those visions, the last day of the summit sought to bridge that gap. The event concluded with world leaders discussing their roles in expanding opportunities for youth. Jack Ma provided encouraging words on resilience and risk taking: “Don’t be number one, be the first one. Be the first one to take challenges, change yourself, and solve problems for others.” He concluded with making four commitments to African youth. Some of his most notable commitments included inviting 200 young African entrepreneurs to study e-commerce at the Alibaba headquarters in China and working with African universities to teach e-commerce and big data to young, emerging African leaders.
A wave of optimism and reverence pulsated the convention center when the final speaker of the summit entered the room: His Excellency Paul Kagame, President of the Republic of Rwanda. He commenced his speech by reminding youth of their role as change makers: “Your role begins with reminders of what has been achieved and realizing that it is still not enough.” He then moved on to his role in creating change as a political leader. He discussed his strategy in taking advantage of the quick actions that require political will as a means to create meaningful change and progress on the continent. Some of those future political actions include creating a more integrated African community whereby African youth can move freely and benefit from opportunities in all countries on the continent.
Harnessing the Energy & Creativity of Youth
“The real experts on matters of youth, are youth themselves,” the Honorable Saah Charles N’Tow, Minister of Youth and Sports of Liberia, affirmed on the first day of the summit. This sentiment was reverberated throughout the summit as it grew clear that the young emerging leaders attending the event encompassed creative visions for how to ensure a future prosperous continent.
As the summit participants shared their visions with one another, I considered the health equity commitments I would make to the global health community. As a Global Health Corps (GHC) fellow, I share GHC’s commitment to ensuring everyone has the right to a healthy and dignified life. While the Youth Connekt Africa Summit largely addressed challenges youth face on the African continent, I, along with other emerging global health leaders, have the responsibility of ensuring an equitable future for all youth across the globe.
Valencia Lyle is a 2017–2018 Global Health Corps fellow in Rwanda.
