KENYA – Young protesters in Kenya successfully demanded the withdrawal of a bill, that would have raised taxes on everything from bread to vegetable oil and sanitary towels. Inspired by their neighbours, Ugandans marched against corruption. Nigerians rallied against “bad governance” and the soaring cost of living.

Since the Covid pandemic, people have also taken to the streets in several other African countries including Ghana, Angola, Malawi and Senegal. While each protest has had unique drivers, they have some things in common – booming young populations struggling with high inflation, a lack of good jobs and a political class that they don’t trust. “Here in Kenya, if you look at these protests, actually, they were led by educated people. But most of them [were] jobless,” said Anthony Kamande, an inequality researcher at Oxfam, based in Nairobi. Africa is a young continent – 70% of the population is under the age of 30, according to the UN. Its population is expected to almost double in 30 years, to 2.2 billion.

Gen Z and millennial Africans are better educated than the generations before them. Of 22 countries that provided data to Unesco for 2011 to 2021, the proportion of students going on to higher education fell in only three. However, more than 10 million people are entering the workforce each year in sub-Saharan Africa, vying for just 3m jobs, according to the World Bank.

Many of those who don’t get formal work hustle in the badly paid, risky informal sector. Unemployment was ranked as the most important problem by 18- to 35-year-olds surveyed by the pan-African survey organisation Afrobarometer. On top of this, the economic shocks of the past few years – Covid, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sending food, fuel and fertiliser prices soaring, and the US central bank’s interest rate hikes pushing up borrowing costs globally – have triggered cost of living crises in many countries. (The Guardian) …[+]