YouthConnekt: 6 years of building young Africans’ resilience

From October 13 to 15, all roads lead to Kigali for the YouthConnekt Africa (YCA) Summit. First hosted in Kigali in 2017, the convention has grown to become Africa’s largest such event connecting young people from across the continent and beyond.

Initiated in 2012 by the Government of Rwanda in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) as a multifaceted youth empowerment model that focuses on leveraging youth employability, entrepreneurship, and civic engagement through innovation, the fifth edition of the summit will be held under the theme “Accelerating Investments in Youth: Resilient Youth, Resilient Africa.”

Rwanda is always open and ready to receive all young Africans. Over the last six years, the annual event draws more than 10,000 delegates from across the continent. They include policy influencers, political leaders, as well as public, private, and development sector institutions, to engage, discuss, design, and accelerate the future of Africa’s youth.

Today, YCA is a fast-growing continental platform with a presence in 28 countries. It has grown to constitute YouthConnekt Convention, YouthConnekt Dialogue and YouthConnekt Awards, all of which have a focus on economic empowerment.

Africa’s solutions to Africa’s challenges is the core mission of the initiative.

For young Africans, the platform opened doors for them to participate in most of the national dialogues especially those that strengthen peace building and reconciliation and participate in dialogues that can inspire and motivate real actions.

Beyond the summit, the YCA impact can be seen through significant numbers. Since 2017, four YouthConnekt boot camps were organized in Rwanda to coach 360 young innovators, awarding a total of 120 innovators. Within only three years, the YouthConnekt boot camp resulted in the creation of about 1,000 permanent jobs and 2,700 temporary jobs.

Since 2012, the annual YouthConnekt awards and program has seen more than 600 young entrepreneurs awarded in different domains, coached and trained on how they could improve their production and scale up their businesses.

More than 20 YouthConnekt debates known as Hangouts were organized, raising awareness among more than 13,000 youths on issues such as employment, entrepreneurship, and ICT.

Five ICT competitions were organised aimed at boosting the ICT and mobile application, resulting into the training of 100 youth and the creation of 25 startups.

To date, more than four million youths have participated in YouthConnekt months organized to engage them to actively participate in their own countries’ development.

The YCA aims at creating 10 million jobs, connecting 100 million young Africans, empowering 25 million youth with skills, nurturing a million youth and closing the gender gap.

This fifth edition will provide a platform for African youth to connect and exchange ideas with like-minded people from all over Africa and beyond. Creating good networks through the initiative will offer practical advice, funding and investments, clients, referrals, and many more.

African youth have a huge potential to leverage their collective capabilities, ideas, and innovation to design the Africa they desire for themselves and others.

The YCA Summit opens doors for so much good to happen.