Let’s invest in sectors driven by youth - President Mahama to African govts

President John Dramani Mahama has called for a paradigm shift in economic planning, urging African governments to deliberately invest in sectors driven by the youth, such as financial technology (Fintech), the creatives and renewable energy to harness the continent's demographic dividends.

At a Private-Public Partnership Dialogue at the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) in Japan’s second-largest city, Yokohama, President Mahama said that with the majority of Africa's population being youthful, “there's no way you can grow a successful economy without investing in them.” 

Interest

The President added that “the youth are interested in certain sectors that are not the traditional sectors. It is important to find where they are interested in, invest in those sectors so that you can attract the youth into those sectors”.

Citing the record $4.2 billion invested in African start-ups in 2024, he highlighted Fintech as a prime example of youth-led innovation, saying it is “growing at an astronomical rate in Africa and is mainly driven by smart, tech-savvy youth.”

The President provided a tangible example from Ghana, where a youth-led Fintech platform revolutionised agricultural support, moving away from a “shot in the dark” approach to an efficient digital system.

President Mahama said that those new sectors were the fastest way to create the millions of jobs Africa needed, and urged governments to shift from the overdependence on traditional paths such as agriculture and manufacturing to job creation.

“The creative sector and youth start-ups are adding jobs faster than the traditional sectors. They add about four jobs before you can create one job in agriculture or manufacturing,” he said. 

Private-public partnerships

The President further stressed the need to create an enabling environment for the private sector to grow, adding that “the private sector is not Father Christmas. It will go where it can get a good rate of return on investment.

And so it's government's duty to create the space for the public sector to exercise its creativity.

And that is why we need to reorient the public sector to do”. 

Drawing from his personal experience as Minister of Communications, President Mahama cited the liberalisation of the Internet cafe and telecom sectors as classic examples of the benefits of reducing bureaucratic hurdles.  

He recalled that regulatory conditions for setting up an Internet cafe were so onerous that “by the time you go through that list, you will not be able to start anything.”

“I said, but why license them?

If you want to set up an Internet cafe, why don't you just open it if you have the investment? 

“And when we did, Internet cafes exploded across the country.

They didn't cause any harm,” the President further recalled. 

He contrasted that scenario with the initial resistance to telecom liberalisation over inflated security concerns, and said today, the sector was a major contributor to Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

“What we need to do is to create the right environment for the young people to thrive.

We should not overregulate. 

“We must not be too sensitive in guarding and trying to regulate and all that.

We must create the space so that these young people can get creative,” President Mahama said.