After attending the Youth Connekt Conference hosted in Kigali, Rwanda in the last couple of days, I decided to go through all the notes I had written and something interesting struck me.
There was nothing strikingly new (nothing I had not heard before) about some of the principles that have helped a beautiful nation like Rwanda to get to where it is.
I thought deeply about this and I realized that our biggest problem in Africa has always been implementation, it is not that we don’t know what to do, there has to be more emphasis on the youth to take action, to engage in meaningful conversations and to demonstrate the power of doing good for the benefit of everyone.
I compiled a small list of the key points I personally picked up and they are very generic and simplistic. However I still find them very important and the list goes as follows:
1. Social media is very important for the youth but it is more important to focus on the quality of the content we generate, getting likes and the popularity that comes with social media is not important unless you find a way for it to improve the quality of your life in some area (maybe economically or for addressing important social issues).
2. Both the political and economic aspects of development are crucial to boosting an industrious Africa, and one does not work well without the other. What Africa needs to understand is that we have to work together and everyone has to play their role. The government needs the private sector to thrive, and on the other hand, the private sector operates under the policies that are set by the government, in fact there is nothing that anyone can do that does not involve the government. Furthermore, we don’t just constitute the government, in essence, we are the government.
3. Countries should develop their youth by trusting and investing in them. It turns out that talent is evenly distributed but opportunities are not. Everyone has a right to seek opportunities anywhere they like, so governments are responsible for building environments that are conducive for the youth to build a thriving economy, otherwise they do not have a right to complain about talent leaving.
4. The youth are always seeking for approval, we have to realize that we already have the go ahead to believe in ourselves and to take action. It is also very important to understand that we have a role to play, opportunity does not go around knocking on people’s doors but we are supposed to be the ones going around knocking on the doors of opportunity, sometimes we have to fight for it.
5. On corruption, I will just quote President Paul Kagame, he said “You will not find a country with zero corruption, but it is possible to have a country where there is zero tolerance for corruption. If you want to fight corruption, you start from the top.” What we need is better governance and better systems.
6. It is important to be both idealistic and realistic at the same time. We all have the right ideas about how things should be but as you grow, wisdom will start to adjust things so that you also become realistic. We need to learn how to balance expectations, responsibilities and ambitions. It’s very important to be ambitious and it is just as important to take care of your health, because there is a correlation between the economic performance of a nation and the health of its youth.
7. Now this is my personal favorite, President Paul Kagame showed us that Rwanda is more wealthy and healthy at heart and in their ambitions. What makes Rwanda so special is not just their fast growing economy, it is more in the principles that govern its people, the principle of love and forgiveness and the fact that they take their ambitions very seriously and their willingness to demonstrate them to the rest of Africa.
About YouthConnekt Africa Summit
The YouthConnekt Africa Summit is an annual convening that connects youth from across the continent. The YouthConnekt Africa Summit provides a platform for all partners involved in youth development to synergize around policies, programs and partnerships that will connect youth for continental transformation.