I don’t think the concerns and hopes of African youth are any different to the concerns and hopes of youth all over the world. They want the same things and they have largely the same aspirations. A recent Afrobarometer survey showed that employment is at the top of their agenda. The difference between African youth and youth in other parts of the world is that in some cases they are lacking the most important ingredient for success: hope. We need people to believe that African youth are not a ’ticking time bomb’ but a resource to be nurtured and a huge opportunity for the continent.
I think it would be foolish to think that the rapid change we are seeing across the world from the effects of digitalisation won’t affect Africa positively – we are already seeing its effects in so many areas.
It presents us with an opportunity to leapfrog without following traditional development paths; we can chart a new course. Take the mobile telecommunications sector as an example. In just 36 years, the sector has connected over half a billion people in Africa, created thousands of jobs as well as successful indigenous companies. Africa leapfrogged over its challenge of poor and non-existent fixed-line infrastructure and blasted into a bright new future.
The leap was possible because of new technology, cheaper infrastructure, more affordable products, competitive markets, an enabling regulatory environment and business models designed for the mass market. As a result, Africa today has the fastest-growing mobile market globally. One of the biggest challenges is the cost of data in Africa, prohibiting young people from accessing what is available to their western counterparts for a fraction of the cost. That’s when you start understanding the inequity in the system. The digital divide is real.
I don’t have just one story of hope, I have many. Africa No Filter funds a news agency called bird which puts out success, progress and human-interest stories that make you rethink what you know about the continent. Since it started two years ago, bird has published over 1,400 of these narrative-changing stories that offer hope for Africa.
For example, a story about how electricity access in Africa is higher than previously thought thanks to off-grid solutions. Another story about how across the continent, ten nations are scripting a new narrative of empowerment and transparency and topping the Press Freedom Index, signalling greater press freedom in parts of Africa. Also, a home-grown African company that is breaking into the Chinese market with a product enabling users to monetise their WiFi connections.
In his book Factfulness, Hans Rosling wrote, “The world cannot be understood without numbers. But the world cannot be understood with numbers alone”. We need stories because they provide the nuance and context that is often missing with data. We need stories to help us understand what is really going on here in Africa, and stories do something powerful that data alone can’t do – they inspire and provide hope. Hope is what we really need to drive Africa’s development agenda because there is nothing that happens in this world without inspiration or hope.
All this to say that storytelling is an intrinsic part of the global development mix, and for something so important is woefully overlooked as a development tool.
We need investment into the creative economy, for example in African story platforms, local media, local distribution networks and for the story-tellers themselves. It’s the only thing that really matters.
