by the We Will Lead Africa Founders
At We Will Lead Africa, one of the questions we explore in our storytelling is: What is the challenge you are seeking to address or potential you seek to unlock?
In a world increasingly defined by volatility, inequality, and disconnection, Africa stands at a pivotal moment. The global system—shaped by centuries of colonial extraction, economic imbalance, and technological acceleration—is cracking under the weight of its contradictions. And yet, within this rupture lies a profound opportunity: for Africa to lead not just in numbers, but in vision, values, and innovation.
This dynamic is always in the subtext and context as we work with African leaders to tell their stories.
The global system is failing—but Africa has been living the collapse
While much of the Global North is only now grappling with the fragility of systems once thought stable, many African communities have long navigated scarcity, political upheaval, and institutional failure. Our lived experiences as global Africans, and from the stories we have heard, edited and curated across our six volumes, tell us that Africa has already been living in the collapse.
For example, each of us on the team has seen this in our African home countries.
In Mozambique, young people are growing up in a context where economic instability, political uncertainty, and limited infrastructure are daily realities. Yet, they are not paralysed by these challenges. Instead, they are innovating—building local tech hubs, launching community-based climate initiatives, and creating informal economies that sustain entire neighbourhoods.
In Nigeria, surging inflation, the resulting cost of living crisis and chronic power outages create a labyrinth of daily exhaustions. In response, ‘japa syndrome’, an extensive brain drain of potential innovators and changemakers sees highly qualified and educated graduates seeking opportunities elsewhere. Nonetheless, those who stay behind persist in their own ways: leading the country’s booming tech ecosystem, forging informal revenue streams through social media and e-commerce, and globalising the cultural industry.
Sierra Leone, over the past 25 to 50 years, has experienced progressive impacts of living in the collapse as it’s transitioned in the post-independence context to economic decline, which, amplified by blood diamond trade, ultimately resulted in civil war. The post-war era has seen climate disasters like flooding and mudslides, and health infrastructure inadequacies revealed via the Ebola epidemic and subsequent global COVID-19 pandemic. The country is now witnessing the impacts of youth unemployment and a drug crisis which many parts of the world are struggling with.
These issues are challenging to bear witness to and/or experience, but the stories of resilience, adaptation, and innovation—that can only emerge out of such realities—are a deep well of wisdom that the world needs now more than ever.
As we learned through another one of our storytelling collaborations—Collateral Benefits—even in the midst of the global pandemic, there were bright lights all across the continent, calling for and working for a better future for Africa.
The youth dividend: Potential or precarity?
Africa is home to the world’s youngest population. By 2050, it will host the largest workforce on the planet. This demographic reality is often framed as a ‘youth dividend’, a potential engine of global growth. But the question remains: growth for whom?
In Nigeria, for instance, the tech ecosystem is booming, with startups like Paystack and Flutterwave gaining international attention. But for every success story, there are thousands of young people navigating unemployment, underemployment, and the psychological toll of economic exclusion. This creates a context known well in Nigeria as the ‘hustle culture’, in which the aspiration is to get out of poverty by acquiring wealth—by any means necessary.
If current global systems that do not serve Africa persist—systems that exploit labour, extract resources, promote trade imbalances, and marginalise African voices—then Africa’s youth risk becoming a cheap labour force for the rest of the world. But if African leaders can reimagine education, innovation, and governance, this generation could become the architects of a radically different future.
Leadership that tells the truth and inspires hope
In a world saturated with performative optimism and tech-solutionism, African leadership must be both radically honest and deeply hopeful. At We Will Lead Africa, we believe that there is a hunger for stories—real stories—of African leaders who are navigating complexity with courage, humility, and vision.
These stories are not just about individuals, but about communities, movements, and systems of care. In these times where we find ourselves oscillating between hope and despair, we do believe that if Africans are going to find a way forward, we must continue to find resilience and inspiration in our own stories: stories of healing, tenacity, change, and transformation that are actually making a difference.
What can African leaders do now?
- Reclaim the narrative: invest in storytelling that centres African leadership, innovation, and resilience—not as exceptions, but as the norm. For instance, partnering with organisations like UNDP to publish collections of African innovation stories can shift global perceptions and inspire local action.
- Redesign education: champion education systems that are locally relevant, globally aware, and rooted in Africa’s realities. This includes creating new models of educational leadership—education for liberation and preparation to harness the power of our youth dividend and resources to meet the needs of the African continent.
- Build conscious coalitions: collaborate across sectors and borders to amplify African agency in global decision-making spaces and promote intra-continental collaboration. Recognise that the global system is not designed for Africa’s success, and it must be confronted, reimagined, and rebuilt with justice at its core. Africans must start by redesigning a system to connect ourselves and build our strength in unity.
- Invest in youth: Not just as workers, but as thinkers, creators, and leaders. Equip them with the tools to shape—not just survive—the future. This includes mental health support, access to capital, and platforms for civic and economic engagement.
Conclusion: The future we want is ours to lead
Africa is not waiting to be saved. It is rising—with all its contradictions, complexities, and courage. The global system may be faltering, but within Africa lies a different kind of power: the power to imagine and enact a future that is not defined by extraction, but by regeneration; not by scarcity, but by solidarity.
The question is not whether Africa will lead. The question is: what kind of leadership will we choose?