The world is changing rapidly, and young people are helping to shape that change across Africa and beyond. They are not waiting to be rescued, consulted occasionally, or treated as an afterthought. They are already leading, creating, innovating, and building solutions grounded in the realities of their communities.

During my mission to Sierra Leone and Nigeria last month, I had the opportunity to witness this firsthand.

What I heard across both countries

In both countries, I met young people whose energy, clarity, and determination left a lasting impression. I also engaged with government leaders, UN colleagues, civil society organizations, educators, and private sector actors responding to both the scale of the challenges and the size of the opportunities.

Across these conversations, one message came through consistently: young people want to contribute, but systems remain too slow, fragmented, and disconnected from their lived realities. What they seek from governments, the United Nations, and other institutions is not charity, but trust, partnership, and sustained investment.

Sierra Leone: Inclusion, recovery, and coherence

In Sierra Leone, I met returned migrants rebuilding their lives through upskilling, young women challenging stereotypes in mechanical trades, and girls finding safety and empowerment through the Girls Advocacy and Development Network (GADNET) Safe Haven. I heard youth advocates calling for inclusion with conviction, and students engaging seriously with the future of artificial intelligence and digital innovation.

In a country shaped by conflict and more recent political strain, youth inclusion is closely tied to peacebuilding, social cohesion, and national recovery.

A key takeaway from Sierra Leone was the importance of coordinated national leadership on youth issues. Strong initiatives, committed partners, and clear ambitions are already in place, including the goal of creating 500,000 jobs by 2030. The remaining challenge is coherence across sectors. Young people do not live in silos—and institutions cannot afford to operate in silos either.

Nigeria: Scale and opportunity

Nigeria reinforced these reflections on an even larger scale. I encountered a country with enormous complexity and extraordinary potential. 

In every conversation, the same truth surfaced: Nigeria’s youth population is one of its greatest assets, and unlocking this demographic dividend requires a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach. 

Youth issues cut across sectors—from jobs and education to climate, security, and health. A central priority is helping young people move from learning to earning without leaving anyone behind, especially those most at risk. In this context, unemployment is not only an economic challenge but also a driver of frustration, insecurity, mistrust, and instability.

Reflections from the mission

Across both countries young people highlighted a clear gap between being included in conversations and being able to influence decisions. That is why meaningful youth participation remains central to the work of the UN Youth Office. Participation cannot be symbolic; it must be intentional, inclusive, safe, and linked to tangible outcomes.

Missions like this reinforce a clear priority for the United Nations and its partners: to move from consulting young people to partnering with them. Through Youth2030, the UN Youth Strategy, the UN Youth Compass, and the Core Principles for Meaningful Youth Participation in the Pact for the Future, we are working to turn global commitments into country-level results—by strengthening institutions, improving accountability, and ensuring youth engagement is sustained rather than one-off. 

Young people also emphasized how the youth agenda must be grounded in concrete opportunities, and repeatedly called for clear pathways to skills, jobs, financing, leadership, healing, and hope. In various discussions, young people flagged the need for priorities around digital literacy, entrepreneurship, innovation capacity, and access to finance.

Youth participation without investment is incomplete. The UN Youth Office is helping to address this through initiatives such as the Youth Marker, which aims to measure and monitor investment in youth across UN programmes and services, and the Secretary-General’s Global Youth Investment Platform to shift support from fragmented, small-scale efforts to more coherent and sustained investment in young people.

Finally, the mission underscored that inclusion must sit at the centre of youth work, not at the margins.

Across both countries, this message came clearly from young women, persons with disabilities, returned migrants, refugee youth, underserved communities, and those affected by drug abuse and mental health challenges. Leaving no one behind requires more than rhetoric. It means redesigning programmes, targeting resources, and addressing the structural barriers that affect those furthest behind.

Priorities going forward

Looking ahead, our priorities for advancing the youth agenda across Africa are clear:

• Strengthen coordination at national and global levels by moving from fragmented initiatives to more coherent systems that connect young people, governments, the UN, civil society, and the private sector.
• Advance meaningful youth participation in governance and decision-making through youth advisory mechanisms, youth delegates, intergenerational dialogue, and more streamlined engagement in national and international processes.
• Prioritize socio-economic opportunities, including employment, skills development, digital transformation, entrepreneurship, and access to finance—especially supporting the transition from education to work and reaching those in the informal economy and underserved communities.
• Strengthen the links between youth, peace, and security, recognizing young people not only as those affected by insecurity, but also as partners in building peace, trust, and social cohesion.
• Improve accountability and evidence through better youth data, clearer tracking of investments, and stronger use of tools such as the Youth Marker to ensure commitments translate into measurable results.

A closing reflection

I left Sierra Leone and Nigeria with both hope and urgency.

Hope, because the talent, courage, and leadership of young people are unmistakable.  Urgency, because they should not have to keep proving their worth before institutions take them seriously.

Africa’s young people are not only the future; they are shaping the present. The responsibility of the United Nations, national governments, and our partners is to match that reality with humility, coherence, and action.

Dr. Felipe Paullier is the Head of the UN Youth Office and UN Assistant Secretary-General for Youth Affairs.