“No Way to Grow Without Youth”- Mahama Champions Africa’s Demographic Dividend
Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama has made a compelling case for prioritizing youth entrepreneurship across Africa, emphasizing that the continent’s demographic shift demands urgent investment in young innovators.
Speaking during the Private- Public Business Dialogue TICAD-9 ,Yokohama 2025 in Japan, on African economic development, Mahama highlighted the critical importance of Africa’s youthful population.
“The answer is simple. It’s that the demographics have changed, and that the majority of the population in Africa is youthful, and so there’s no way you can grow a successful economy without investing in the youth,” he stated.
President Mahama noted that young Africans aged 16 to 35 represent a staggering 60% of the continent’s population – “that’s not a demographic you can ignore,” Mahama emphasized.
Fintech Leading the Charge
President Mahama pointed to impressive investment figures, revealing that “in 2024 there was about an investment of 4.2 billion in start-ups, and a lot of that went into the biggest majority was about 45% which went into fintechs.”
He shared a transformative example from Ghana’s agricultural sector, where young entrepreneurs developed innovative solutions to longstanding challenges.
“These young people set up a fintech. They set up a platform. They gave mobile phones to farmers, they distributed agricultural inputs to the farmers based on their acreage and their need,” Mahama explained, describing how the platform revolutionized farmer credit access and productivity tracking.
Job Creation Imperative
President Mahama stressed the urgency of job creation, noting that creative and digital sectors significantly outpace traditional industries in employment generation.
“The creative sector and youth start-ups are adding jobs faster than the traditional sectors,” he observed, adding that these sectors “add about four jobs before you can create one job in agriculture or manufacturing.”
Mahama warned of the consequences of inaction: “We know that we say the youth bulge, or the huge youth population in Africa, is an advantage, but if we do not create enough jobs fast enough to absorb those young people coming out, then it will become a gunpowder keg and it could consume us.”
With Africa needing to create 12-15 million jobs annually, Mahama’s message is clear: investing in youth entrepreneurship isn’t just an opportunity – it’s an economic necessity for the continent’s future stability and prosperity.
