Former President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Dr Akinwumi Adesina, has warned that Nigeria and other African countries cannot afford to waste the potential of their growing youth populations, identifying unemployment, poor-quality education, inadequate healthcare and limited access to finance as systemic failures preventing young people from contributing fully to economic development.
Adesina said Africa’s demographic advantage would remain unrealised unless governments developed the capabilities of young people and created opportunities for them to apply their skills, establish businesses and generate wealth.
Delivering the keynote address at the inaugural Seyi Tinubu Colloquium in Lagos on Monday, titled “Africa Next: Building the Demographic Asset Class,” the development economist argued that the problem was not the size of Africa’s population but the failure of institutions and economic systems to harness its potential.
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“Our young people are not the liability. Wasted potential is the liability,” he declared.
He explained that when young people acquired skills but could not find jobs, or entrepreneurs developed promising ideas but lacked access to financing, the failure lay in the systems that prevented their capabilities from translating into economic value.
According to him, unemployment and underemployment, poor-quality education, inadequate healthcare, unreliable electricity, skills mismatches and weak institutions were among the obstacles preventing Africa from benefiting fully from its youthful population.
“These are not failures of the young person. They are system-created liabilities,” he said.
Adesina maintained that African countries must change how they approach population growth, moving beyond counting the number of young people to assessing the capabilities they develop and the economic opportunities available to them.
He noted that Africa was projected to account for approximately one-quarter of the world’s population by 2050, with more than half of global population growth over the period expected to come from the continent.
While describing the trend as a historic opportunity, he cautioned that population growth alone would not guarantee prosperity.
“But numbers alone do not create prosperity. Capability does,” he said.
The former AfDB president urged governments to prioritise investments in education, technical training, healthcare, technology and entrepreneurship, arguing that these were essential to building a productive workforce capable of competing in the global economy.
He described the human mind and its capacity to learn, reason, innovate and solve problems as “Grey Matter Infrastructure,” which he said was fundamental to national development.
According to him, while governments routinely invest in roads, railways, ports, electricity and digital networks, they must also invest in the people who use such infrastructure to create economic value.
“Education is an investment in the productive capacity of a nation,” he said.
Adesina also stressed the importance of connecting education and skills development to available economic opportunities, noting that acquiring qualifications without access to employment, capital and markets would limit the benefits of investments in human capital.
He said Africa needed to equip young people with the capabilities required in manufacturing, agriculture, digital technology and other productive sectors.
The economist also challenged African countries to prepare young people to participate in the development of artificial intelligence rather than remain consumers of technologies created elsewhere.
He argued that African innovators should develop and adapt AI solutions to address local challenges in education, healthcare, agriculture, business and governance.
“We must become a creator, an adapter and a shaper of AI,” he said, adding that technological development should expand opportunities rather than deepen inequality.
On entrepreneurship, Adesina said young people needed access to affordable financing and markets to turn their ideas into viable businesses.
He explained that financial institutions often viewed young entrepreneurs as risky borrowers, particularly when they lacked conventional collateral, thereby limiting their ability to establish and expand businesses.
He called for financial systems that could identify promising entrepreneurs, take calculated risks and invest in their potential.
Adesina said the objective should be to build sustainable enterprises that generate employment, increase incomes and create lasting wealth rather than rely solely on conventional youth empowerment programmes.
He introduced what he called the “Social Balance Sheet” as a framework for assessing whether a country’s institutions and economic systems were helping its people develop their potential or preventing them from doing so.
Under the framework, investments in education, healthcare and skills development contribute to building human assets, while unemployment, poor infrastructure, inadequate social protection and weak institutions create liabilities.
He said leaders should assess the capabilities they were building, the obstacles they were removing and the economic value their societies were creating.
Adesina urged African leaders to take responsibility for ensuring that the continent’s growing population translated into productive capacity and shared prosperity.
“Our task as leaders is therefore clear: Build the assets. Reduce the liabilities. Grow the equity,” he said.
He added that Africa’s future would depend on whether its young people were equipped to create businesses, develop technologies, solve problems and contribute meaningfully to economic development.
The former AfDB president maintained that Africa must move beyond viewing its population merely as a source of labour and instead develop the skills and productive capabilities needed to compete internationally.
He urged young Africans to invest in their education, skills, character and enterprise while demanding opportunities to turn their capabilities into economic value.
“Africa cannot afford to waste your potential. And you cannot afford to waste it either,” he said.