African youth are grappling with multiple, overlapping challenges in education, jobs, civic engagement, and mental health, with family fractures and global pressures adding to the burden, according to Diana Amabelle Nwakanma of LEAP Africa.
She stressed that building transformative leaders requires intergenerational dialogue and a shift in mindsets.
Speaking during a Radio Generation interview on Wednesday, Nwakanma explained that LEAP Africa, a 24-year-old youth development organization founded in Nigeria and now operating across the continent, was established to foster a new generation of African leaders.
“If you take the average young person anywhere in the continent, especially Sub Saharan Africa, they’re going to be struggling in one or more of those places at any point in time, and that limits them from being the leaders, the people that they need to be to really drive and push our continent forward,” she said.
LEAP Africa’s work focuses on entrepreneurship, education, employability, active citizenship, and health and wellbeing—program areas she described as “empirically driven.”
On education, Nwakanma highlighted gaps in access and quality, saying many young people are ill-prepared for the future of work. “The world we live in now is demanding a lot from our young people. How prepared they are, how competitive they are, is always a major gap that we’re trying to bridge.”
The youth employment landscape, she added, presents a major challenge. “Africa has a huge unemployability problem. We have so many people graduating, the jobs are not there for them.” Entrepreneurs also face barriers, including limited access to markets, finance, and networks compared to peers elsewhere in the world.
Nwakanma warned that young Africans are increasingly disengaged from civic life.
“Young people are almost discouraged from being active citizens. So there’s a disillusionment that you find with the average young African.” She cited a lack of civic intelligence as a factor, preventing youth from holding leaders accountable or fully understanding their civic responsibilities.
Mental health is another critical concern. “This generation of young people are some of the most mentally unwell in history,” Nwakanma said, pointing to high levels of anxiety, depression, and suicidal tendencies. Social media and global crises, she explained, have made mental health challenges more prominent. “You cannot be trying to optimize them as leaders, as humans, and you’re not addressing the health and well being.”
Comparing countries such as Nigeria and Kenya, she observed that the struggles faced by young people are broadly similar, differing mainly in severity. Family cohesion, she added, is under strain.
“There’s a bit more fracturing happening at the family level,” including intergenerational gaps and disconnects, leaving many young people feeling unsupported or misunderstood.
Despite these obstacles, Nwakanma remains hopeful, citing the enduring strength of African cultural communality. “There’s still that thread of communality in our culture that is still quite strong,” she said, highlighting the ongoing desire for togetherness amid global uncertainty.
She acknowledged tensions between global influences and local realities, which often leave youth caught between expectations and reality. Nevertheless, she sees promise in young people’s malleability.
“They are still malleable, they’re still somewhat forming,” she said, describing LEAP Africa’s initiatives as both a “mindset shift” and a “paradigm shift” effort. “It’s a hill worth dying on. What’s the alternative? Because they’re still going to inherit it anyways.”
Nwakanma also called for stronger intergenerational dialogue to connect youth with their history. “If you’re going to change your mindsets, you’re also going to have a frame of reference as to why it’s important to do so. Slowly but surely, we try to bridge that gap.”
