sayosays

NOTE: This is reblog from a post I did for Torchlight Collective who facilitated my participation in the AU summit. You can read the original post here For Africa to be first, youth must come first. The AU has declared 2017 the year of the African Youth and dedicated the theme for the year to young people. I fell in love with this theme because it puts young people at the center of development and explores the benefits Africa can gain by investing in her most productive generation. During our pre-Summit sessions we looked at the four pillars of the demographic dividend -- health, education, governance, and economics -- and developed key asks for the Kenyan government to work on if they are to benefit from the youth who form 35% of her population. The future is bright, and Africa can come first if she puts her youth first. Managing our population structure should be done with human rights at the center. I led a team of young people from my organization in discussions on the demograph