President Mokgweetsi Masisi has gone out on a limb to support Botswana youths – the latest Afrobarometer survey has revealed. Afrobarometer surveyed 18 African countries in 2019 and early 2020 and found that although most Batswana are against their tax being used to help the youth, the Masisi administration has put a lot of resources towards improving the youth lot, emerging as the best performing country in addressing the needs of its youths.This is in spite of the fact that the country’s youth did not vote at the 2019 general elections.
Afrobarometer found that Botswana was the best performing country in addressing youth needs among the 18 that were surveyed. Botswana scored 56% followed by Ghana at 47% and Ethiopia at 40%. The survey further revealed that Botswana came fourth with 72 points in meeting the educational needs of its youths after Kenya at 75 points, Ghana at 74 points and Sierra Leone at 74 points. It further emerged that although Botswana came second at 32 points after Ghana at 42 points in creating jobs for its youths, the country’s youth unemployment stood at a staggering 49% lower only than Lesotho at 57%.
According to Afrobarometer, although Botswana youths are making the loudest noise on social media, they do not participate in civic and political action, including voting. More than twice as many Botswana youths skipped voting in the last national elections compared to the middle aged (35-55) and older citizens (56+ years).
Afrobarometer findings revealed that 40% of Botswana youths did not vote compared to 18% of the middled aged and 10% of older citizens. Botswana has the highest no-vote gap between youth and seniors at more than 30 percentage points followed by Lesotho, Ivory Coast and Gabon.
“African youth are also less likely to report attending a community meeting, joining others to raise an issue, contacting a political or traditional leader, and identifying with a political party. The exception to lower youth participation, as might be expected, is protest: Nearly 1 in 5 youth (18 percent) say they participated in a protest during the past year, about 50 percent higher than the rate among those aged 56 or older.”
Of the 18 countries surveyed, Batswana came 17th among citizens who were willing to have their tax committed to helping the youth. When asked “If the government decided to make people pay more taxes to support programs to help young people, would you support this decision or oppose it? 57% of Batswana across all age brackets said they would oppose it while only 43% said they would support it.
Only Angolans scored less than Batswana with 61% saying they would oppose it and 31% supporting the tax hike. The report also revealed that the continent’s youth like their elders, are generally dissatisfied with the direction in which their country is going (64 percent say it is “the wrong direction”) and rank unemployment as the most important problem their government needs to address.
Despite concerns about the unmet needs of youth, a majority of Africans consider the ideas of young people secondary to the wisdom of the elders. Almost 6 in 10 respondents (58 percent) say that in order for their country to do well, “we should listen more to the wisdom of our elders,” while only 37 percent instead prioritize listening more “to fresh ideas from young people.” Young respondents are somewhat more likely than their elders to favour listening to youth, yet still solidly value “wisdom” over “fresh ideas” (56 percent vs. 40 percent). One striking exception is Tunisia, where 70 percent of citizens say young people’s ideas should get more attention.
