Summit Background



Summit objectives
Past Summits and takeaways

- majority of young Africans continue to keep their innate high hopes and aspirations. There was a great deal of the depth of energy, innovation, creativity, resourcefulness and dynamism among the youth during the summit.
- Despite the above situation, there remain several mismatches between their expectations and the opportunities that are available to them. The youth expressed great distaste for the systemic and growing culture of corruption on the African continent, and how this has consistently frustrated their hopes and aspirations.
- They also expressed how government officials and public office holders continue to pay lip service towards the youth.
- There was inadequate information of the youth on SDG 2030 and AU Agenda 2063 processes and how they can engage on these issues in their respective countries. This will require more education and localization of SDGs.
- Youths were frustrated about inadequate funding opportunities and entrepreneurial capacity to set up their own business. The youth have expressed the desire to set up their own businesses.
- Leaders skills and organizational skills were also lacking among some of the youth participating in the Summit. This prevents them from leading and engaging on issues affecting in their respective countries.
- Lastly, there was evidence that there is inadequate interaction and exchanges between young people across countries in Africa. Many young people do not read or follow development issues happening in their next-door neighborhoods. This lack of interactions and exchanges is due to limited opportunity for exchange programmes, bilateral youth events or programmes within African countries as most government agreements omit components of youth inter-cultural exchanges. Additionally, the cost of Internet and barring Internet regulations in some counties restrict access to information, and to innovation and interactions among young people otherwise which could accelerate delivery of SDGs and development in rural African communities.
Our overall Goal
The overall goal of the Summit is to create a platform for the Youth of Africa to develop strategies to influence policies and programmes to ensure that implementation of actions relating to SDGs do not only benefit them but also effectively involve them.

Expected outcome
The summit will be designed to achieve the following outcomes:
- Launch Campus SDG Innovators Program to stimulate students’ solutions on the SDGs across Africa.
- Launch of the SDG Youth Actions Fund to award mini financial awards and mentorship support to scale up youth-led actions on the SDGs.
- Produce final summit report highlighting key/emerging best practices and outcomes of each session.
- Adopt Summit Call to Actions– calling for accelerated actions on the SDGs.
- Adopt participants/country teams work-plans to localize the summit call to actions and launch national chapters of the summit.