Online Reporter
POINT BLANK
MS CHIDO MPEMBA, the African Union (AU) youth envoy, is set to conclude her two-year term as the chairperson of Young People in Africa in February 2025. In an interview with our Reporter TANYARADZWA RUSIKE, Ms Mpemba reflects on her impactful tenure, highlighting her significant contributions to youth empowerment and development across the continent. Below are excerpts of the interview.
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Q: You are the first Zimbabwean to become the AU youth envoy. What was the significance of the appointment to you personally and Zimbabwe as a whole?
A: The significance to me was to say that I was just a young girl who grew up in Bulawayo, who was selected among thousands of applications and be able to be that hope for the young women I have met in my community; to be able to be that inspiration for the young girls who are still in school and looking to do what they can do next in their life and to be able to show that it is possible as a Zimbabwean. It was an opportunity to say I am proudly Zimbabwean and I’m able to represent others on a global stage, which shows that there is so much that Zimbabwe can give on the continent and globally. More young women can also take up these opportunities. I think it was that key responsibility that was bestowed on me as the special envoy.
Q: What were your initial expectations and pressures when you assumed this role, given the vast and diverse youth population of Africa?
A: There are so many challenges that are faced by young people. Youth is cross-cutting, so I had that challenge to say what exactly should I focus on? You work with different departments, you work with the multilateral institution and looking at what to prioritise was difficult. When I got appointed, I embarked on a 60-day listening tour.
This tour was across Africa, from west to east to north to southern Africa to the diaspora, because, you know, the diaspora is considered a sixth region of Africa. I got to ask young people what they want to be represented on, the issues they are faced with. That exercise helped to streamline and say these would be my key focus areas.
Q: What were your key priorities as the AU youth envoy and how did you align these with the overall goals of the African Union?
A: My key priority of the African Union was to champion the Africa Youth Charter. The charter is a decision that came from our Heads of State in 2006 in Banjul to say they need to have a charter and a treaty that all member states use to come up with their national youth policies. For me, there were still about 18 member states that had not signed the youth charter.
When I got into office, one of the key initiatives was to get more countries to sign. However, the document is from 2006 and we are in 2024.
The current realities faced by young people have changed and they keep evolving. Therefore, there was a need to revise the youth charter, but, because it is a legal document that’s binding on all our member states, I needed to get a decision from all the 55 governments to agree that we can revisit the youth charter.
Thankfully, I managed to get that decision this year, where there has been a decision that we now need to relook at and revisit the youth charter so it can meet the realities faced by young people today.
This youth charter already tackles a number of the issues faced by young people such as economic development and the right towards economic development for young people in Africa. We have partnered with Google and we have managed to visit nine countries and train over 5 000 young people on digital literacy and the future of work, and working with entrepreneurs to see how they can leverage digital marketing to further accelerate their businesses. It is a way of trying to see how we can tackle the high unemployment rate by building the current and the future generations of entrepreneurs.
Secondly, education is critical.
This year, we have seen that the theme of the African Union is transforming education in Africa. That is something that my office was able to advocate and lobby for two years. We even have a declaration on the youth manifesto on transforming education in Africa that I had the responsibility to present to our Heads of State in 2022 as part of the advocacy to say the African Union needs to focus on that as a theme and it has been taken up this year as the theme of the year.
Q: What were the biggest challenges during your tenure, and how did you overcome them?
A: You can just imagine being a young woman and politics. It made me realise we need to have more initiatives to start supporting young women in politics because, at the African Union, I am a political appointee and when I joined, I had to build the office from scratch. I had to come up with my own team. I was coming from the private sector.
Human capacity and resources were such a major challenge. Thankfully, I had the support of my Government. I want to thank the Government of Zimbabwe and President Mnangagwa because they have been instrumental.
I also had the support of different member states. I worked closely with the World Bank and the United Nations to be able to make this a reality. We need to set a firm foundation at the African Union. So, while I am getting ready to leave office with the current chairperson, one of the decisions that I got from the Heads of State was to institutionalise the office.
The 55 member states have agreed that it is now a permanent office of the African Union. When I started two-and-a-half years ago, it was just an appointment by the chairperson, which meant the next chairperson could come and say, I do not need a youth envoy.
I made sure I secured that decision. It is actually a fully established permanent office at the African Union. I said that, inasmuch as it’s a permanent office, the role should be rotational.
When we came up with the request for that decision, we made sure that it remains a rotational post.
I will still leave this February with the current Cabinet, but it will rotate across different regions. It is now something permanent for the continuation and sustainability of the voices of young people in key decisions on a continental level.
Q: How did you influence policy decisions at all national levels to better address the needs of young people?
A: I have established different committees. We have the Africa Youth Reference Committee, which is made up of 25 members from across the continent and even in the diaspora. We also have what is called the Panel of the Future Initiative. One of the projects we worked on was to advocate when it comes to governance-related issues. As a result of this, Nigeria has passed a decision to have 30 percent of women and youth representation in the federal government.
That came as a result of creating this youth reference committee and working with the committee’s members to advocate at national level. Another example I could give was that, as we all know, it is such a big year for elections in Africa. We have had Namibia, Ghana, Botswana, Rwanda, Mozambique and South Africa holding elections. I advocated more inclusion of young people and women in election observations of the African Union, and this year it has increased to 45 percent.
Q: What are the key lessons you learned during your tenure as youth envoy and how are you going to apply them in your future endeavours?
A: The key lesson I have learned during my tenure is that the youth are so diverse that it is important that each person and every group feels represented. What I needed to do differently was to ensure that the information reaches the grassroots and we have more representation of marginalised communities.
We have more representation of young people with disabilities, more representation of young women and we have more balanced representation towards urban and rural areas, not only coming to the African Union, but some of the initiatives that are already ongoing.
When it comes to peace and security, as we speak right now, this week (last week) we are in Burundi, hosting our African Union Continental Dialogue on Youth, Peace and Security.
That also came as a matter of advocacy, where the President of Burundi was appointed as the African Union Champion on Youth, Peace and Security because there are states in the African Union that are champions for different initiatives. For instance, Ghana is a champion for financial institutions, and Zambia is a champion for ending child marriages.
We do not have a champion on youth.
Those are some of the key initiatives from my office where we had an appointment of a champion on youth. From there, we had a continental dialogue on youth, peace and security in Bujumbura, Burundi. That also then came with a decision that became a permanent dialogue, emanating from the Bujumbura Declaration.
Q: Given the numerous challenges facing young people such as unemployment, climate change and limited resources, what specific recommendation would you offer to address this?
A: Two years ago, I was in Zimbabwe for a Southern Africa dialogue with ministers of youth and national youth councils that focused on them coming up with national action plans on youth, peace and security. We need to collaborate more as young people because, when there are limited resources, at times it also creates competition. I believe collaboration over competition is critical.
We need to also advocate more allocations from governments on youth-related initiatives. Let us do that to ensure that issues of young people are critical across all boards.
We should not just be in silos. We should not be on the sidelines. I say this a lot even when I attend high-level meetings, that we should not have youth meetings on the side when there are bigger international conferences; we deserve to be on the main table.
We are young professionals and we equally want to be represented. We also want to influence decision-making as we make up the largest demographic on the continent — 70 percent is not a joke; it means whatever decision is being made is affecting us the most because we have the biggest market share.
Q: What is your vision for the future?
A: My vision for the future of the African youth is to continue to build our continent. Let us move our continent towards 100 percent economic development. I envision myself within that and to play my part.
Playing my part could mean coming up with an innovation that will be able to employ the next person, being involved in Government and being part of the decision-making.
Playing my part could mean ensuring that the young person within the community that I represent is aware of the potential that they can bring to the table in developing our
continent.
