Every year, on August 12, the world pauses to celebrate young people. Governments issue statements. Organisations hold conferences. Panels are convened. Social media fills with hashtags celebrating the creativity, resilience and potential of youth.
But perhaps this year, we should ask a more uncomfortable question:
What exactly are we celebrating?
Are we celebrating the progress young people have made despite the systems around them, or are we celebrating another year of policies, strategies, frameworks, conferences and commitments that have yet to translate into sufficient change on the ground?
Because the numbers tell a different story.
Across Africa, up to 12 million young people enter the labour market every year, while only about three million new formal wage jobs are created annually. In Eastern and Southern Africa, the gap is even more striking: approximately eight million young people enter the labour market each year, yet fewer than one million secure waged employment. At the same time, an estimated 6.5 million young people in the region are neither in school nor in employment.
In the Arab States, the situation is hardly reassuring. Youth unemployment was estimated at 27.7% in 2025, more than twice the global rate of 12.8%. Among young women in the Arab States, the rate was even higher, at 39.3%. Globally, the International Labour Organization estimated that approximately 262 million young people aged 15–24 were not in employment, education or training in 2025 — roughly one in four young people.
So again, what exactly are we celebrating?
We have become remarkably good at talking about young people. We have youth policies, youth strategies, youth councils, youth conferences, youth empowerment programmes, youth declarations and youth frameworks.
Yet somewhere between the policy document and the young person standing outside an office looking for work, something gets lost.
A young graduate cannot eat a policy document.
An entrepreneur without access to capital cannot build a business from a conference communiqué.
And a young person who has spent years searching for employment does not experience empowerment through another panel discussion about the importance of youth empowerment.
At some point, celebration has to become action.
This is not an argument against Youth Day. Quite the opposite. International Youth Day is important because it gives the world an opportunity to recognise the role and contribution of young people.
But recognition without action risks becoming a yearly ritual rather than a catalyst for change.
The real measure of a society’s commitment to its youth should not be how many speeches it makes about young people. It should be how many opportunities it creates for them.
From Potential to Opportunity:
Africa’s rapidly expanding working-age population presents an extraordinary opportunity. The World Bank estimates that Africa’s working-age population will increase by about 740 million over the next three decades.
That could become one of the continent’s greatest economic advantages — but only if we act.
We need to move from youth participation to youth ownership; from consultation to investment; from policies to implementation; and from celebrating potential to actually creating the conditions in which that potential can thrive.
This is where organisations such as the Afro-Arab Youth Council (AAYC) have an important responsibility.
AAYC’s commitment to Youth, Peace, Unity and Development cannot simply remain a statement of institutional purpose. It must speak to the realities young people face today: unemployment, limited economic opportunities, skills gaps, exclusion from decision-making and the growing frustration that comes when the future appears to be permanently postponed.
The Afro-Arab youth agenda must therefore become increasingly practical.
We need partnerships that create opportunities. Programmes that build employable skills. Platforms that connect young entrepreneurs to capital and markets. Cross-border opportunities that allow young Africans and Arabs to learn from one another.
Most importantly, we need mechanisms that allow young people to participate not simply as beneficiaries, but as partners and decision-makers.
Because the greatest danger is not that young people are asking for too much.
It is that we keep asking them to wait.
Wait for the next policy.
Wait for the next programme.
Wait for the next election.
Wait for the economy to improve.
Wait for the next conference.
Meanwhile, another 12 million young Africans enter the labour market.
We cannot keep celebrating the same generation while postponing the action it needs.
Perhaps, therefore, the most appropriate way to mark Youth Day this year is not simply to congratulate young people on their resilience.
Perhaps we should ask ourselves why they have had to become so resilient in the first place.
Young people do not need another year of being told that they are the leaders of tomorrow.
They need to be given the opportunity to lead, build and prosper today.
That is what Youth Day should ultimately be about.
Not celebrating young people despite their circumstances, but changing those circumstances so that young people actually have something to celebrate.
The author works with the Afro-Arab Youth Council
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