In August 1925, 21 West African law students met in London and formed the West African Students’ Union. Within two decades, their union had helped shape the 1945 Manchester Pan-African Congress. In October 1945, the Fifth Pan-African Congress met in Manchester and made African independence its central demand. Among its organizers was a 36-year-old Kwame Nkrumah, fresh from years of student activism in the United States. From the beginning, the dream of a free and united Africa was carried by the young. A century later, that inheritance sits uneasily with the very generation that should own it.

Five paradoxes define this relationship. Pan-Africanism was made by the young, yet its institutions lock them out. The African Union promised in Agenda 2063 that “youth unemployment will be eliminated”, yet in sub-Saharan Africa, a larger share of young people is out of work, education or training than in 2015. Africa is the world’s youngest continent, yet its leaders are, on average, some four decades older than its people. Three in four young Africans say they share a common identity, yet the desire to live in another African country is declining, while Afrophobia has gained ground, even within Africa (most notably in the decidedly anti-African xenophobia witnessed in South Africa). Finally, a generation that inherited the long struggle for democracy has cheered soldiers who seized power in Bamako, Ouagadougou and Niamey (see more on this below).

One argument runs through all five paradoxes. Pan-Africanism has become a project of states, while its natural constituency is the young. The two remain fundamentally disconnected, moving like ships in the night. Each paradox marks a point at which they have drifted apart.

The inheritance paradox

Twenty years after its adoption, the African Youth Charter still obliges states to “guarantee the participation of youth in parliament and other decision-making bodies” (Article 11). Young people remain at the margins of these bodies, and a 2025 Tanzanian study found that many know little about Pan-African history. Yet their Pan-Africanism is alive elsewhere: Gen Z protesters in Kenya, Morocco and Madagascar have shared tactics across borders in real time. The energy that founded the movement persists, but outside the institutions built in its name.

The promise paradox

Agenda 2063’s First Ten-Year Implementation Plan pledged to reduce youth and women’s unemployment by two per cent annually. Instead, the ILO counts 21.6 per cent of young people in sub-Saharan Africa as being outside work, education and training, and expects their number to rise from 55.6 million in 2025 to 58.9 million by 2027. Mobility fares no better. The Free Movement Protocol has secured only four of the 15 ratifications it needs, while the free trade agreement launched alongside it has 49. The promissory note remains unpaid.

The generational paradox

Africa’s median age is about 19. The median age of its leaders, according to the Institute for Security Studies, is about 63, and several sitting presidents are over 80. The distance is reflected at the ballot box: Only half of Africans aged 18 to 25 say they voted in the last election, according to Afrobarometer, compared with 80 per cent of those over 35. When the youngest citizens stay away, the promises made in their name lose their enforcers.

The identity paradox

A 2020 African Youth Survey found that a majority (76 per cent) of young Africans perceive themselves as sharing a common identity. However, another survey covering Africans of all ages found that the proportion who would prefer to move to another African country had fallen from 36 to 26 per cent (Afrobarometer, 2026). Furthermore, the activities of Operation Dudula in South Africa reveal strong Afrophobic tendencies. This could point to horizontal violence, with young people’s anger over unemployment being directed against African migrants. Identity without shared opportunity curdles into competition among the poor.

The democracy paradox

For much of the post-independence era, citizens across most of Africa’s 55 states have struggled for democracy, good governance, the rule of law and justice. Yet many young people cheered when soldiers seized power in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger between 2020 and 2023. In Mali and Niger, for instance, military takeovers ousted governments that had come to power through elections. Furthermore, rejection of military rule among Africans aged 18 to 35 has fallen by 12 percentage points in a decade.

The reasons may be both domestic and foreign. ACCORD analysts trace the disillusionment to rigged elections, term extensions, corruption, unemployment and insecurity – an indictment of democracy as practiced. The AU’s Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance denounces practices that undermine democracy (Article 23(5)), yet the AU has remained largely silent on them. Support for military takeovers on grounds of sovereignty may also reflect grievances over sovereignty itself. Oxfam France and Niger’s ROTAB coalition, for instance, found that in 2010 Niger received only about 13 per cent of the €3.5 billion value of the uranium mined on its soil, reflecting the massive exploitation of a country that remains one of the poorest in the world by foreign interests.

Conclusion

From its earliest organized days, the Pan-African dream of a free and united Africa was carried by young people. A century later, the question is whether today’s young Africans see that project as their own and whether they have the desire to fulfil its promise. The founders in 1925 numbered just 21. Today’s young Africans number in the hundreds of millions, with a comparable scale of ambition and the same right to shape the century and their own destiny. What would stop them if they willed it?