The future of African youth and women entrepreneurship and their roles in the region's economy

Sometimes it seems like everywhere we turn these days we hear talk of Africa's youth demography and the latent economic potential therein. This is consistent with the "African renaissance", "Africa rising," and "lions on the move" narratives variously championed by African politicians, international media, and various institutions, financial and otherwise, since the end of the last millennium. These narratives have been fueled by the end of the Cold War, rapid globalization, the transformations brought on by advances in telecommunications and technology, a deepening of political democracies across the continent, and a hunger for new investment opportunities by international private and public investors. The telecommunications and financial sectors and consumer booms of the earlier 2000s served as further proof points. In October 2023, the New York Times wrote about the African "Youthquake."