Yemi Obafemi
President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, has raised concerns over the growing trend of youth migration from Africa, popularly known as the “japa syndrome,” describing it as a significant loss for the continent.
Speaking during an exclusive interview on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Thursday, Adesina emphasized the need for a shift in how African nations approach youth empowerment. He criticized traditional “empowerment programmes” that offer temporary support, arguing that Africa’s youth need real investment and access to capital to transform their ideas into sustainable businesses.
“Young people don’t need freebies; they don’t need people saying: ‘I just want to give you an empowerment programme’,” Adesina stated. “They have skills, they have knowledge, they have entrepreneurship capacity. What young people need is not those empowerment programmes; they need capital, they need you to put your money at risk on their behalf.”
Adesina highlighted that Africa is home to over 465 million young people between the ages of 15 and 35, a demographic he described as a powerful asset that should be nurtured, not exported.
“Africa should not turn what should be its demographic asset into somebody else’s problem,” he warned, adding that a failure to believe in and invest in young Africans would hinder the continent’s growth.
He firmly dismissed the notion that the future of African youth lies abroad, stating, “I do not believe that the future of our young people lies in Europe; it doesn’t lie in America, it doesn’t lie in Canada, Japan or China; it should lie in Africa growing well, growing robustly and able to create quality jobs for our young people.”
