Mr. Basiru Jaye, Programme Officer for ICT and Innovation at the Gambia National Youth Council (NYC) has recalled the Afro-barometer (2016) survey across 36 African countries which indicated that 78 per cent of the youth believed in the civic responsibility of voting.
“Therefore, their participation cannot and should not be a subject of debate, but a certain and obvious reality,” Jaye emphasized on Thursday, 17th March 2022, while delivering a presentation on the topic, “Breaking Barriers to Youth Participation in Governance”, at the NYC training of young people, on Youth Inclusion in Governance and Mitigation of Violence. He said that youth participation in politics, governance and electoral processes, is significant, and it’s a fundamental right to citizenship as stipulated in Hart [Roger Hart’s ladder of participation] 1992. He said out of an estimated population of 1.3 billion, the youth demographic is an estimated 430 million of Africa’s population.
“The sheer statistics on the total number of youths compared to adult population on the continent, befits their political and electoral inclusion. Youth participation, not only as voters but also as contestants and electoral officials, is a fulfillment of their civic role in governance processes”, Youth Council’s ICT and Innovation Program Officer.
Despite this significance of youth participation in politics, electoral and governance processes, factors such as poor civic education, economic barriers and lack of employment and financial resources, and infrastructural challenges leading to poverty, are barriers to youth participation. This, Jaye added, carries a double effect of totally dissuading youth participation in political, electoral and governance processes. He also lamented cultural impediments, saying attachment to traditional culture in most African societies defines the distinctiveness of those societies.
Political barriers, such as structural political hostility, political marginalization, a one-party dominant political system resulting into the suppression of dissenting voices, give the youth the impression that elections do not change anything and so, participation in electoral processes, is deemed as waste of time.
“The lack of quotas for youth in Parliaments and in political parties, is one of the prohibitive factors as well as an avenue for the exploitative participation of the youth. An observable trend is that even where the quota has been established such as in Tunisia and Kenya, not all political parties readily embraced the quota provisions”, said Jaye.
He also cited lack of government-led funding or aid schemes to help attract youth to social investment, adding sometimes, the absence of funding from within weakens the policy and resource environment for participation.
Other barriers to youth participation in governance include digital barriers legislative exclusions, access to information and language barrier, Jaye cited.
