African youth as the 7th region of African Union

In February 2026, at the 39th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union in Addis Ababa, I pointed to a structural failing. By recognising the diaspora as the sixth region in 2003, the Union took account of those whom geography had placed at a distance from the continent. Yet, it has still to address an exclusion no less profound: that of its youth.

Generational exclusion is no less contrary to Pan-African principles than geographic exclusion. The proposal was subsequently refined through engagements with actors from the African Union and the diaspora. On June 16, in Johannesburg, more than a thousand young Africans affirmed the call for their recognition as the seventh region of the African Union.

The Foundation later carried the proposal to Bujumbura, during celebrations marking the 20th anniversary of the African Youth Charter. But a favourable reception is not yet a transformation. Indeed, it is often the moment when an idea is most at risk of hardening into a symbol.

The experience of the sixth region should serve as a warning. The 2003 decision recognising the African diaspora as the sixth region was historic. More than two decades later, however, it has largely yielded consultative status without a vote, a marginal budget and only an intermittent presence in the Union’s major decision-making processes.

Recognition without transformation is precisely the pitfall the proposed seventh region must avoid. Africa still speaks of its youth — who constitute more than 60 per cent of the continent’s population — as its “future”. It is a convenient formula that allows almost everything to be promised and very little to be delivered.

Fewer than five per cent of leadership positions in continental institutions are held by people under the age of 35. To make youth a region is therefore to give them more than visibility. It must give them a voice, resources and real power.