COVID-19 Africa Watch speaks to Aya Chebbi, African Union Special Envoy on Youth about the impacts of COVID-19 on youth across the continent.

Key Takeaways

The following are a few of the main takeaways from COVID-19 Africa Watch’s conversation with Aya Chebbi, African Union Youth Special Envoy:

• Africa’s youth are facing four main crises as a result of COVID-19: an economic crisis (especially in terms of employment, and particularly for the youth who are in the informal sector); a health crisis (which also includes mental health challenges as a result of isolation); an increase in gender-based violence (including destruction of sexual reproductive health services, no access to contraceptives, and the rise of child marriage and FGM); and a humanitarian and human rights crisis (including increased police violence, and particular difficulties migrant or refugee youth, and youth in conflict settings).
• To better address these crises and based on extensive consultations with Africa’s youth held in March and April 2020, the African Union has established the African Youth Front on Coronavirus, putting in place a high-level policy space for young people to co-lead the response to the pandemic.
• Looking ahead, the main demands from youth (for their governments as well as for the international community) are around creating a conducive environment for employment in Africa, and better including youth in the continent’s digital transformation (recognizing that so far, 70% of Africa is still offline).
• In terms of youth leadership, young people are being set up for failure if they have to wait until they are 40-50 years old in order to lead traditional institutions. They need to be in these institutions now, and perhaps if they had been better included in leadership roles a decade ago, Africa would have digitalized and innovated faster and would have been better equipped to tackle COVID-19 today.

The interview was conducted by Ndey Anta Taal, an IFC-Milken Institute Capital Market Scholar from International Trade Center.