African youth as the 7th region of African Union

In February 2026, at the 39th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union in Addis Ababa, I pointed to a structural failing. By recognising the diaspora as the sixth region in 2003, the Union took account of those whom geography had placed at a distance from the continent. Yet, it has still to address an exclusion no less profound: that of its youth. Generational exclusion is no less contrary to Pan-African principles than geographic exclusion.

The proposal was subsequently refined through engagements with actors from the African Union and the diaspora. On June 16, in Johannesburg, more than a thousand young Africans affirmed the call for their recognition as the seventh region of the African Union.

The Foundation later carried the proposal to Bujumbura, during celebrations marking the 20th anniversary of the African Youth Charter. The idea was well received. But a favourable reception is not yet a transformation. Indeed, it is often the moment when an idea is most at risk of hardening into a symbol.

The experience of the sixth region should serve as a warning. The 2003 decision recognising the African diaspora as the sixth region was historic. More than two decades later, however, it has largely yielded consultative status without a vote, a marginal budget and only an intermittent presence in the Union’s major decision-making processes. Recognition without transformation is precisely the pitfall the proposed seventh region must avoid. Africa still speaks of its youth — who constitute more than 60 per cent of the continent’s population — as its “future”. It is a convenient formula that allows almost everything to be promised and very little to be delivered. Fewer than five per cent of leadership positions in continental institutions are held by people under the age of 35.

To make youth a region is therefore to give them more than visibility. It must give them a voice, resources and real power. But even a seat at the table can become a mechanism of absorption without changing the rules that have kept young Africans at a distance for generations. That is why access cannot be based on co-optation. It must be based on merit — the genuine possibility for competence to reach positions of responsibility, independently of political networks, patronage or established connections. Without such safeguards, the seventh region could simply reproduce the very blockages it seeks to correct. It must therefore be conceived as an instrument, not an honour.

It should provide young Africans with the capacity to initiate policies and programmes, dedicated resources to pursue them, and mechanisms for public scrutiny to measure their impact.

The demographic reality makes this imperative. The median age in Africa is about 19, while the average age of the continent’s heads of state is well above 60. Narrowing that generational gap requires institutions that do more than open doors. They must create genuine pathways into leadership — and be accountable for the results. The seventh region, therefore, is not a gift that the African Union confers upon Africa’s young people.

It is an inheritance that we are building for them. And that inheritance will be worth only as much as the rigour of the rules on which it rests. Talent without opportunity remains a promise in suffering. But an opportunity that is poorly constructed can become another cage. So, should African youth be given a seat? Yes — if that seat is a beginning, not an end; a lever, not another symbol. The seventh region will succeed only if it avoids the fate of the sixth: recognition without transformation. 

*Samb is President, Abdou Samb Foundation and Honorary Ambassador to the Pan-African Parliament for the Diaspora